According to the data released by the General Administration of Customs on the 13th, in the first quarter of this year, China's imports and exports with ASEAN and the EU were 1.35 trillion yuan and 1.31 trillion yuan respectively. ASEAN overtook the EU and once again became China's largest trading partner. Although in the first two months of this year, ASEAN lagged behind the EU by about 3 billion yuan, the growth rate of trade between China and ASEAN accelerated under the joint action of supporting factors such as the formal entry into force of the regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement (RCEP), the stable recovery of regional industrial chain and China's active expansion of imports of agricultural products from ASEAN. Li Kuiwen, spokesman of the General Administration of customs and director of the statistics and analysis department, said at the press conference of the state information office on the same day that with the official entry into force of RCEP, the new system dividend is further strengthening the economic and trade exchanges between China and ASEAN. According to the data, the scale of China's foreign trade with ASEAN accounted for nearly 47.2% in the first quarter. "In the first quarter, China EU trade maintained a good momentum of development as a whole." Li Kuiwen also talked about the trend of China EU trade. On the one hand, China's export of electromechanical products to the EU accounted for 60%, of which the export of new energy products such as electric manned vehicles, solar cells and lithium-ion batteries increased by 3.8 times, 1.4 times and 66.2% respectively. On the other hand, China's imports of some consumer goods from the EU maintained growth, of which imports of beauty cosmetics and toiletries, bags, passenger cars and clothing increased by 11.9%, 6.6%, 4.6% and 3.6% respectively. Li Kuiwen said that China and the EU are both major economies in the world. The two sides are important trading partners with great development potential and broad prospects for economic and trade cooperation. (Xinhua News Agency)