Beijing-Washington Trade Wars Have Little Impact On Chinese Economy - Statistics Bureau

Trade disputes, which have intensified this year between China and the United States, have had little impact on the Chinese economy, spokeswoman for the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Liu Aihua said on Wednesday.

BEIJING (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th November, 2018) Trade disputes, which have intensified this year between China and the United States, have had little impact on the Chinese economy, spokeswoman for the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Liu Aihua said on Wednesday.

"As for the impact of US-China trade and economic relations, it is relatively limited, if we look at current statistics," the NBS spokeswoman said at a briefing.

Liu noted that one should not forget about numerous external factors of uncertainty and instability, as the growth momentum of the global economy and trade has noticeably weakened, there is instability in the global financial market and significant volatility of basic goods prices.

"If you look at the situation inside China, the structural disbalance that has accumulated over a long time is quite substantial, and a number of enterprises, especially private, small and medium ones, still experience difficulties in doing business," the spokeswoman added.

China increased energy imports in October compared to the same month last year, boosting oil and natural gas purchases by 31.5 percent and 25.6 percent, respectively, the NBS monthly data showed.

China imported 40.8 million tonnes of oil in October, with average daily oil imports amounting to about 1.316 million tonnes. In January-October this year, China boosted oil imports 8.1 percent year-on-year to 377.16 million tonnes.

Oil production in China in October increased by 0.3 percent year-on-year to 16.09 million tonnes, but fell 1.7 percent to 157.2 million tonnes in the first 10 months.

Chinese industrial output, which reflects the volume of goods manufactured by large industrial enterprises, increased by 5.9 year-on-year in October, slightly accelerating from a 5.8-percent increase in September, the NBS said.

In the first 10 months of 2018, Chinese industrial production grew by 6.4 percent.

China and the United States are currently engaged in a trade war, which kicked off when US President Donald Trump announced in June he was enacting a 25-percent tariff on $50 billion of Chinese goods "that contain industrially significant technologies," in a bid to fix the US-Chinese trade deficit. Since then, the two countries have exchanged several rounds of trade duties against each other.