US-Chinese Trade Dropped By 15.4% In Q1 2019 - Chinese Customs Administration

The US-Chinese trade dropped by 15.4 percent in the first quarter of this year, totaling $119.5 million, as the two countries have been holding consultations to eliminate trade tensions, the data of the Chinese General Administration's of Customs showed on Friday

BEIJING (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 12th April, 2019) The US-Chinese trade dropped by 15.4 percent in the first quarter of this year, totaling $119.5 million, as the two countries have been holding consultations to eliminate trade tensions, the data of the Chinese General Administration's of Customs showed on Friday.

According to the data, the trade imbalance between the two countries, which initially led to the ongoing trade war, is gradually decreasing and constituted $62.7 billion in January-March.

In the first quarter of 2019, Chinese exports to the United States fell by 8.5 percent and totaled $91.1 billion, the Chinese customs' data showed. At the same time, the United States exported goods worth only $28.4 billion to China over the given period, which is 31.8 percent less than in January-March 2018.

Chinese General Administration of Customs spokesman Li Kuiwen said, commenting on the released data, that despite the fact that trade and economic tensions between the United States and China did have their impact on business, the trade situation in general was manageable.

China's various ministries, including the Customs administration, took a number of measures to support the development of enterprises, Li indicated. These measures included increase of the VAT recovery rate on exports and decrease of VAT itself, as well as reduction of enterprises' business expenses and payments to insurance funds.

Li also noted that Beijing believed that trade cooperation was still playing an important role in the development of stable relations between China and the United States.

Beijing and Washington have been in a trade dispute since June, when US President Donald Trump announced the United States would impose 25 percent tariffs on Chinese goods worth of $50 billion in a bid to fix the US-Chinese trade deficit. Since then, the two countries have exchanged several rounds of trade tariffs. At the moment, the two world's largest economies are trying to work out a mutually acceptable trade agreement that would put an end to an almost year-long tariff war.