China to expand imports of quality products in 2023: official

BEIJING, Feb. 2 -- China will appropriately expand imports this year with strengthened cooperation with trading partners, an official said Thursday.

Li Xingqian, an official of the Ministry of Commerce, told a press conference that the country would leverage the advantage of its super-large market and increase imports of quality products from other countries to stabilize the global trade and supply chains.

China's imports in 2022 totaled 2.71 trillion U.S. dollars, according to Li.

With a record foreign trade volume of 6.3 trillion U.S. dollars, China remained the largest goods trading country for the sixth straight year in 2022. Net goods and services exports contributed 17.1 percent to the gross domestic product growth.

Given a rising risk of global economic recession and slowing growth of external demand this year, Li said more efforts will be made to improve the trade structure and ensure that exports play a steady role in supporting the economy.

Li said China would fully resume offline trade fairs, appropriately expand imports, promote new trade models like cross-border e-commerce, and encourage processing trade in central, western, and northeastern regions.