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By Tang Guhan

Contrary to World Trade Organization's gloomy outlook for global trade, China's foreign trade performed quite well in the first eight months this year.

The WTO released a report on downgrading its outlook for global trade on Thursday. 

WTO economists expected that the escalating trade tensions and tighter credit market conditions in important markets would slow down trade growth for the rest of this year and in 2019, with a slump of 0.2 percent from 3.9 percent in 2018 to 3.7 percent in 2019.

However, according to China's General Administration of Customs, China's exports and imports in the first eight months this year amounted to 19.43 trillion yuan (2.822 trillion U.S. dollars), up by 9.1 percent year-on-year. The imports' value is 9.09 trillion yuan (1.32 trillion U.S. dollars) while the exports has increased by 5.4 percent to 10.34 trillion yuan (1.5 trillion U.S. dollars).

China has increased its imports and exports in the European Union (EU), the U.S., the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Japan as well as countries along the Belt and Road.

The trade volume between China and the EU was 2.87 trillion yuan (0.42 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first eight months of this year, up by 6.2 percent year-on-year. The trade volume between China and the U.S. was 2.67 trillion yuan (0.39 trillion U.S. dollars), up by 5.9 percent year-on-year. And the figure was 2.45 trillion yuan (0.36 trillion U.S. dollars) between China and the ASEAN, up by 11.8 percent year-on-year.

Data from China's General Administration of Customs show that China's trade transactions are dispersing around the world.

Dozens of Chinese export companies said they were not relying on the orders solely from the United States. Instead, they have been doing business with a wider range of customers from all over the world.

Feng Zhengzhou, chairman of the Shanghai Export Enterprise Association, said Chinese companies' export and import volumes to and from the U.S. only account for a tiny proportion of China's total trade volume. Thus the impact of trade frictions with the U.S. is limited in this regard.

Chinese entrepreneurs said most Chinese companies are still focusing on low-end value-added products, which are complementary with their western counterparts.