Cargo ships handle foreign trade containers at Qingdao Port in East China's Shandong Province on June 20, 2025. Photo: VCG

The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee held a meeting on Wednesday, stressing the need to expand high-level opening-up and stabilize the fundamentals of foreign trade and foreign investment, according to the Xinhua News Agency. 

The meeting analyzed and studied the current economic situation and made arrangements for economic work in the second half of this year. China's development is facing profound and complex changes, as strategic opportunities, risks, and challenges are concurrent and uncertainties and unforeseen factors are rising. Meanwhile, the country's economy is underpinned by a stable foundation, multiple advantages, strong resilience, and great potential, and the supporting conditions and fundamental trends for long-term sound economic development have not changed, the meeting concluded, per Xinhua. 

The meeting also outlined several top priorities for economic work in the second half of 2025. Among them, it put emphasis on expanding high-level opening-up to the outside world and stabilizing the fundamentals of foreign trade and foreign investment. 

It also called for efforts to support foreign trade enterprises that have been under heavy pressure, strengthen financing support, and promote the integrated development of domestic and foreign trade. In addition, it also stressed the need to optimize export tax rebate policies and build high-level open platforms such as free trade pilot zones, according to the Xinhua report.

The meeting reaffirmed China's firm commitment to high-standard opening-up, which will further bolster international confidence in the Chinese market, according to Huang Bin, executive dean of the Institute of Chinese Modernization at Minzu University of China.

In the first half of the year, China's economy proved resilient in the face of mounting external headwinds, underscoring the effectiveness of macroeconomic policies. Despite growing global trade uncertainties, exports remained a key growth driver - buoyed by front-loaded orders in the first quarter and China's firm approach to external economic challenges in the second quarter, Huang told the Global Times on Wednesday. 

China's total goods imports and exports in yuan-denominated terms rose to 21.79 trillion yuan ($3.05 trillion) in the first half of 2025, up 2.9 percent year-on-year. The growth rate accelerated from a rise of 2.5 percent registered in the first five months of the year. Notably, the country's exports rose 7.2 percent year-on-year during the first six months of the year, according to official data released earlier this month. 

As global trade remains under intense pressure, stabilizing the fundamentals of foreign trade and investment hinges on advancing institutional opening-up and deepening structural reforms to foster a more transparent, predictable, and market-oriented business environment - an approach central to the next stage of China's trade development, according to Huang. 

Meanwhile, amid the complex global economic landscape, global investors are increasingly looking at the Chinese market in a positive light, backed by China's resilient market performance in the first half of 2025, with key indicators reflecting growing global confidence in the world's second-largest economy.

From January to May, net equity-based foreign direct investment into China reached $31.1 billion, up 16 percent year-on-year, and net inflows into China's securities market reached about $33 billion, reversing the net outflows recorded in the second half of last year, Li Bin, spokesperson for the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, told a press conference on July 22. 

Li said that overall investment inflows into China have remained strong, and outbound investment is also advancing in a steady and orderly manner. 

In the first half of 2025, 30,014 new foreign-invested enterprises were established nationwide, up 11.7 percent year-on-year. Actual foreign investment in high-tech industries reached 127.87 billion yuan ($17.76 billion) during the period. Foreign investment in e-commerce services surged by 127.1 percent year-on-year, while investment in aerospace equipment manufacturing increased by 36.2 percent, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday.