Guangdong's strong demand fuels imports, drives economic growth

According to official statistics released Monday, South China's Guangdong province demonstrated a strong demand for major imported products in the first 10 months of this year.

Guangdong, China's biggest foreign trader, imported 1.75 trillion yuan ($246.48 billion) worth of mechanical and electrical products from January to October, a year-on-year increase of 20.3 percent. This category accounts for 66.6 percent of the province's total import value, revealed statistics from the Guangdong Sub-Administration of General Administration of Customs of China (GACC) on Monday.

The volume of imported integrated circuits amounted to 915.54 billion yuan, while the imports of automatic data processing equipment and their components came to 237.55 billion yuan. The figures represented a year-on-year growth of 16.6 percent and 138.8 percent, respectively.

Imports of semiconductor manufacturing equipment reached 43.64 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 62 percent, customs statistics said.

The global manufacturing base purchased more than 83.52 million metric tons of energy products, including coals, crude oil and natural gas, valued at 109.94 billion yuan, up year-on-year 26.8 percent and 6.9 percent, respectively.

The province's imported grain reached over 11.43 million metric tons, a year-on-year increase of 29.1 percent, valued at 31.27 billion yuan, up 9.3 percent.

Guangdong's sustainable growth of major imported products demonstrates the province's strong economic growth and high domestic demand since the beginning of the year, according to a statement from the Guangdong Sub-Administration of GACC.

The strong import performance has helped the province achieve an import and export volume of more than 7.5 trillion yuan in the first 10 months, up year-on-year by 10.6 percent and representing 20.9 percent of the country's total.

Guangdong sold 4.88 trillion yuan worth of products abroad while purchasing goods valued at 2.64 trillion from the rest of the world, up year-on-year 8.8 percent and 14.1 percent, respectively, for a trade surplus of 2.24 trillion yuan in the first 10 months.

They represented 15.9 percent, 12.5 percent, 11.9 percent, 11.4 percent and 8.2 percent of Guangdong's total, said the statement.

The province's foreign trade volume with countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative totaled 2.73 trillion yuan from January to October, a year-on-year increase of 9.2 percent and accounting for 36.4 percent of Guangdong's total.

China's foreign trade witnessed a year-on-year growth of 5.2 percent during the same period, it said.