Hunan’s First-quarter Foreign Trade Growth Exceeds National Average

　　The Hunan Department of Commerce, on April 19, announced Hunan’s first-quarter development condition of open economy.

　　From January to March, the foreign investment, foreign trade, and foreign economic cooperation all made good starts.

　　Foreign trade maintained a stable growth. During the first quarter, the imports and exports value totaled 42.025 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 52.5%. This increase was 30.7-pct higher than national average, and ranked the sixth across the country and the first in central China. Processing trade grew by 61%, 40-pct higher than the national level.

　　The amount of actually used foreign investment and in-place domestic investment grew at a double-digit pace. Hunan utilized 3.485 billion USD of foreign investment, up 19.3%, and introduced 124.359 billion yuan of domestic capital, up 14.1%. The contractual foreign investment reached 7.699 billion USD, growing by 218.2%. The foreign capital utilized in secondary industry showed a positive growth for the first time over the past two years. Investments in manufacturing sectors saw a recovery, indicating increasing investment in real economy.

　　Foreign labor cooperation surged. The first-quarter contract amount of foreign projects and foreign labor cooperation business reached 1.343 billion USD, an increase of 16.8%.

　　Beyond that, construction of several important foreign trade platforms was pushed ahead. The China (Hunan) Free Trade Zone, and China (Changsha) Cross-border E-commerce Pilot Zone were in application process. Upgrading of Hunan Provincial Economic Development Zone into a national level one, and construction of the market purchase pilot in Gaoqiao Bazaar, and national innovative pilot of overseas economic and trade cooperation area – Ethiopia-Hunan Industrial Park”, were pushed forward for new breakthroughs.