China’s trade with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) marked a robust growth in the first half of this year, according to official data provided by the General Administration of Customs (GAC), on Friday.
Specifically, Chinese trade with BRI countries totaled 4.24 trillion yuan (= USD 617.5 billion) during this period, representing a 9.7% increase year-on-year and outpacing the growth rate of the country’s total trade in the first half of 2019.
Meanwhile, China’s foreign trade remained stable growth in the first half of this year by expanding by 3.9% year-on-year, , according to the General Administration of Customs (GAC) as quoted by Xinhua news agency.
Trade with BRI countries also registered a higher share of China’s total trade, which stood at 28.9%, up by 1.5 percentage points compared with the first half of 2018.
Exports and imports with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Egypt went up by 11.5%, 34 % and 11% respectively, GAC data showed.
These figures come a few days after the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) expanded its membership to 100, with Benin, Djibouti and Rwanda the latest countries to join the multilateral lender.
The addition of the three African countries was announced at the bank’s annual meeting in Luxembourg on Saturday.
