The Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) hosted, on May 19 in Changsha, Hunan, “Seminar on Readjustment of Foreign Trade Planning at Home, and Meeting for Suppliers and Purchasers from the Eastern, Central and Western Regions”. Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Chao was present to address the seminar.

Wang Chao expressed that the foreign trade is grim, and the trend is not optimistic. Global economy is faced with many uncertainties, with a slow growth of global trade, and trade frictions heating up. In China, restraint of rising cost of employment, logistics, raw materials and financing, energy, land and ecological environment kept increasing, in foreign trade development, China's export price advantages is faced with challenges.

Wang Chao said that MOFCOM, facing the challenges, has vigorously promoted optimizing of domestic regional distribution of foreign trade, encouraging adjustment of foreign trade in the Eastern Region, at the same time accelerating foreign trade development in the Central and Western Regions, which is not only an important measure to maintain steady growth of import and export at present, but also a powerful foothold to accelerate the transformation of foreign trade development mode in the long run. Accelerating regional cooperation, promoting flow of factors, and carrying out the matchmaking of trade orders among the Eastern, Central and Western Regions are conductive to realize optimization of cross-regional distribution of industrial chain, and enhance international competitiveness of related industries, which is an important task for MOFCOM currently and in the near future.

The seminar was organized by China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Light Industrial Products and Arts-Crafts, and supported by China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Textiles and Hunan Provincial Department of Commerce. Experts from the Development Research Center of the State Council, China Textile Industry Association, China Light Industry Federation, and over 200 representatives from local commerce department and enterprises were present at the seminar, discussing and exchanging views on such topics as optimizing domestic regional distribution of foreign trade and order transfer. 29 enterprises from the Eastern Region, and 63 enterprises from the Central and Western Regions attended the seminar, covering six traditional labor-intensive industries including textiles, garments, ceramics, shoes, cases and bags, outdoor leisure supplies, one-on-one business exchanges were carried out by the enterprises present at the seminar, and a number of cooperation intentions were reached.