China's foreign trade recovery beats expectations

China's foreign trade has recovered better than expected in the first half of this year, Yicai reported on Thursday.

The warehouses of merchants in Yiwu, Zhejiang province are gradually emptying and overseas customers are coming to China to require orders be delivered ahead of time.

"At the end of last year, we had a peak stock of 2.2 million items, but since the beginning of this year, there are only over 800,000 items left in stock. And that's when the production line is running at full speed," said Lai Guorong, general-manager of a clothing company called Aidu in Zhejiang.

Over the past month, the company sold more than 1 million pieces in stock, feeling good about the recovery in the global markets, Lai said.

China's imports and exports in February exceeded $411.2 billion, up 1.3 percent year-on-year in US dollar terms with imports in February reaching $197 billion, up 4.2 percent year-on-year, according to the data of the General Administration of Customs updated on March 18.

From January to March this year, the company's exports maintained a year-on-year growth of 30 to 40 percent and the factory is basically too busy to meet the demand of orders, said Liu Mingyang, general-manager of Yiwu O-Choice Imp & Exp Co Ltd.

Digitalization can help businesses to quickly know what features, such as color and shape, are preferred in the overseas markets, and videos can help to maintain customers and generate profits.

"A cross-border livestream of 59 minutes and 09 seconds made me a net profit of 1 million yuan ($ 150,000)", said Liu.

Intelligence and video will define the next generation's foreign trade experience besides the added value brought by science and technology to products and brands made in China, said Zhang Kuo, president of Alibaba.com.

Currently, integration of digital and real economy has become the standard in foreign trade. Foreign trade merchants of different types can find new business increments through digitalization.