1、Chinas customs agency is reporting a significant slowdown in trade here in China, which it says is being brought on by the problems in Europe and a still-weak US economy.As CRIs Ding Lulu reports, Chinese customs officials are warning this trend is likely to continue for the rest of this year.In the
2、 first half of this year, total foreign trade in China has reached 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars.Thats an increase of 8 percent year on year.Exports are up 9 percent to 950 billion U.S. dollars in the first half.However, these figures are well below the government target of at least 10-percent trade gro
3、wth for the whole of 2012.Zheng Yuesheng is with the General Administration of Customs.He says structural changes are the reason for the slowdown.On the one hand, export of machinery and electronics presents a fast growth, while export of traditional labor-intensive products takes a low proportion.
4、On the other hand, imports of energy, resource products and consumer goods keeps a high growth. At the same time, imports price is falling, with some commodities prices going down.Zheng also suggests theres not a lot they can do to try to reverse the situation.First, external demand remains weak. Se
5、cond, cost of our exports has been high. Third, the use of foreign investment has decreased. All of these factors contribute to a low export growth.Zheng says if the world economy, particularly the European debt crisis, does not worsen, its hoped a 10-percent growth goal in foreign trade can be met
6、this year.Bilateral trade between the EU and China has reached 270 billion U.S. dollars so far this year, which is up 0.7 percent from the same period a year ago.Still, many observers here in China are warning this countrys exports are still being threatened by trade protectionism, particularly from the United States, as well as uncertainty and instability in the world economy.For CRI, this is Ding Lulu.