Under the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, the foreign trade channels of Central and Eastern European countries were affected to varying degrees last year, and the trade of many countries declined. However, since the second half of last year, China has made significant achievements in the fight against the Covid-19 epidemic, and its economic development has steadily improved, which has led to the recovery of trade between Central and Eastern Europe. China has long been an important trading partner for many CEE countries and is playing an increasingly important role as the Covid-19 epidemic continues to spread.


With the accession of Greece in April 2019, the China-CEEC cooperation group expanded from "16+1" to "17+1". At present, 12 out of the 17 CEE countries are EU members. Therefore, the China-CEEC cooperation mechanism is a useful complement to the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and the EU, and provides a model for regional cooperation under the "One Belt And One Road".

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According to the latest data, in October 2020, the total trade volume between China and the 17 Central and Eastern European countries was 69.342 billion yuan, up 25.84 percent year on year. In the first 10 months of this year, China's import and export volume with CEE countries totaled 583.374 billion yuan, including 431.957 billion yuan in exports and 151.417 billion yuan in imports, up 8.27%, 8.39% and 7.92% year on year respectively. Compared with the first nine months, the growth of China's trade with Central and Eastern Europe further accelerated in October, with import trade growing by more than 60 percent year on year. The cumulative import volume from January to October, even though imports were sluggish in the first half of the year, grew at a rate of over 7%. This shows China's important market position in CEE countries.


In terms of countries, from January to October in 2020, China's import and export volume with Poland and the Czech Republic reached RMB180.159 billion and RMB104.969 billion respectively, up 14.50% and 7.46% year on year respectively, accounting for the highest proportion of import and export trade between China and Central and Eastern European countries, accounting for 30.88% and 17.99% respectively. Rounding out the top five in terms of import and export volume with China are Hungary, Slovakia and Romania, with year-on-year growth of 14.56%, -2.28% and 11.22% respectively in January-October.


The cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European countries has a long history, especially the "16+1" and "17+1" cooperation mechanisms gradually formed in recent years, which have laid a good foundation for the development of bilateral trade, said Batabic, assistant professor of the Department of Industrial Economics of Masakry University in the Czech Republic, in an interview with China Trade News. Despite the prevalence of global trade risks and trade protectionism, economic and trade exchanges between China and Central and Eastern European countries are relatively stable, and countries in the cooperation mechanism all agree with economic globalization and trade liberalization. On the one hand, many commodities are complementary to each other. On the other hand, although the two sides compete in some industrial and manufacturing fields, they have gradually found some consensus and ways of cooperation in recent years. This demonstrates the great potential of economic and trade cooperation between China and CEE countries, and the greater resilience and resilience of our cooperation. In the future, the two sides need to explore a higher level of cooperation based on the high level of openness.

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"CEE countries and China have had fruitful cooperation in the fight against the Covid-19 epidemic. Much of China's experience is instructive. With the strengthening of trust between the two sides, bilateral trade is expected to grow in 2021, which will set a model for China's regional cooperation with other countries, "he said. "Betabic said.


Ding Yifan, a researcher at the World Development Institute of the Development Research Center of the State Council of China, said in an interview that in recent years, products from many Central and Eastern European countries have entered the Chinese market and enriched people's lives. In particular, the Expo has promoted the products and services of CEE countries through platforms such as the Expo, which has tapped more advantages of CEE countries in the Chinese market and achieved great results.


Economic growth in central and eastern Europe is expected to be stronger than in most eurozone countries after 2021 and more resilient to the effects of Covid-19, according to a report released by Moody's in January. At present, although still troubled by the epidemic, Central and Eastern European countries are on the road to economic recovery, and there are multiple positive factors for economic recovery.


Due to the rapid growth of trade volume, shipping and China-Europe freight trains continue to strain capacity. In the first 10 months of last year, container throughput at Chinese ports of larger size continued to expand, growing by more than 8 per cent year on year. Some exit ports of China-Europe freight trains, such as Alashankou, Erlianhot and Horgos, have been severely congested. The period from November to January 2021 is a peak trade season, and the "17+1" economic and trade figures are still expected to set a new record.