Regular Press Conference of the Ministry of Commerce on May 17, 2016

By：MOFCOM Update：2016-05-20

In April, the domestic consumer market presented a steady growth trend. The retail sales of consumer goods reached RMB 2.46 trillion, going up 10.1% year on year, 0.1 percentage points higher than that of the same period last year and the actual growth was 9.3% with the price factor excluded. The growth of the total retail sales of consumer goods in January-April was up 10.3% year on year. The monthly growth rate of the sales of 5,000 major retail enterprises monitored by the Ministry of Commerce has picked up for two consecutive months. The main features are as follows:

The export to the traditional markets was stable again.In April, China’s export to ASEAN was up 12.6%, The export to countries related to Belt and Road continued to grow, and the export to Philippines and Thailand also increased.

The investment from major resources remains stable and the investment from the countries along the “Belt and Road” to China continued to increase. In January-April, ASEAN actually input RMB15.64 billion (US$2.45 billion) to China, up 45.6% year on year. Countries related to the “Belt and Road” actually input RMB16.02 billion (US$2.51 billion) to China, with an increase of 23% year on year.

In April, ASEAN actually invested RMB4.07 billion (US$0.64 billion), increasing by 77.1% on a year-on-year basis. Countries related to "the Belt and Road" actually invested RMB4.25 billion (US$0.67 billion), going up by 75.9% year on year.

In January-April, the investment from Chinese mainland to the seven major economies such as China Hong Kong, ASEAN, EU, Australia, the United States, Russia and Japan reached US$46.96 billion, accounting for 78.2% of the total sum of the foreign direct investment in the same period. Among these, the investment in the ASEAN increased 21.5% year on year.