Emerging markets to bolster foreign trade growth

China's foreign trade will pick up this year as manufacturers shift towards more technology-intensive exports and strengthen ties with emerging markets, government officials and business leaders say.

- By ZHONG NAN

Chinese exporters' push for market diversification, along with improvements in regional connectivity and supply chains, is helping to bolster resilience and sustain long-term growth despite external headwinds, they said.

China's foreign trade was worth 29.57 trillion yuan ($4.14 trillion) in the first eight months of the year, 3.5 per cent more than in the corresponding period last year, the General Administration of Customs says.

Lyu Daliang, director of the administration's department of statistics and analysis, said the value of China's foreign trade growth in the first eight months was 0.6 percentage point higher compared with the first half of the year. The value of both exports and imports rose last month, the third month in a row of simultaneous growth, he said.