China Admits Foreign Trade May Be In Doldrums Next Year

China's foreign trade may face a more complicated situation next year given base effects and receding positive factors associated with the global COVID-19 pandemic, Wang Wentao, the country's Commerce Minister said, Reuters reported.

Photo Insert: Yantian port, Shenzhen, China

Foreign trade already faces a complex situation in the second half this year, Wang told a news conference in Beijing, as the fuel-dependent China has to contend with rising crude oil prices, Shen Yan, Stella Qiu, and Ryan Woo reported for Reuters.

Worse, China has ordered manufacturers to maintain domestic prices, forcing businessmen to reduce output or dilute the quality of their products to save on costs.

Moreover, it doesn’t help any that China, which is heavily dependent on coal, also has to buy low-quality coal from Africa after its trade war with Australia after Canberra insisted on an independent inquiry into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had its epicenter in Wuhan City in China.

Beijing insists the virus originated from US military laboratories and was spread in China without a single official being detected. This conspiracy theory has been roundly rejected worldwide.

China's cross-cyclical macroeconomic policy will help economic fluctuations stay within a reasonable range, Wang added, but did not address how the vow of President Xi Jinping to spread wealth evenly in China has affected greedy capitalists encouraged by Deng Xiaoping to accumulate billions of dollars while an estimated 500 million Chinese wallow in poverty.

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