By Fatima Javed   

 

China's trade with Belt and Road countries soared by 20.2 percent year-on-year to 8.77 trillion yuan, said Li Bijian, Consul General of China to Karachi.

 

In his tweet, the Chinese counselor said the number of China-Europe freight train trips rose 5% year-on-year to 10,575 and the trains transported a total of 1.02 million TEU of goods, an increase of 6% from a year ago.

 

According to General Administration of Customs of China (GACC), the steady growth of China's foreign trade in the first eight months came as the country continued to roll out policies to stabilize foreign trade and coordinate pandemic control with economic and social development.

 

China's foreign trade sustained growth momentum in the first eight months of the year, a positive indicator of economic recovery, as the government continues to roll out measures to spur economic growth and stabilize foreign trade.

 

The official data showed that China's foreign trade in goods jumped by 10.1 percent year-on-year to 27.3 trillion yuan (about 3.95 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first eight months.

 

Private enterprises saw imports and exports increase by 14.9 percent from a year ago to 13.68 trillion yuan in the first eight months, accounting for 50.1 percent of the country's total.

 

As per China’s BRI Investment Report H1 2022, Chinese engagement through financial investments and contractual cooperation for the first half of 2022 in the 147 BRI countries was about US$28.4 billion.

 

This is an increase of 47% compared to the originally reported deals of the first half of 2021 – and about equal to the corrected numbers of H1 2021. Of this engagement, about US$11.8 billion was through investments, and US$16.5 billion through construction contracts (partly financed by Chinese loans).

 

Many of the construction contracts are financed through loans provided by Chinese financial institutions and/or contractors with the project often receiving guarantees through the host country’s government institutions.

 

This article originally appeared on Gwadar Pro.