First time! RMB settlement! Surpass the United States and Europe, become the largest export market

Fernando, Eldorado's chief financial officer, said the yuan settlement was a new experiment for the company. Founded in 2010, Eldorado is one of the most competitive players in Brazil's pulp industry, selling 40 percent of its pulp to China.

Recently, BRICS members have made a big push to settle cross-border trade in local currencies and reduce reliance on the US dollar.

In May this year, during Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's visit to China, China and Brazil announced that they would no longer use the US dollar as the intermediate currency, and completed the first cross-border RMB settlement business. 

At that time, Suzano SA, a world pulp giant headquartered in Brazil, even considered eliminating the exchange link between the Brazilian real and the Chinese yuan, allowing Chinese customers to settle commodity trade directly in renminbi.

According to incomplete statistics, more than 30 countries, including Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Iran, Germany, Indonesia and Malaysia, have begun to use RMB in trade settlement and investment with China.

The shift also shows how Chinese components are increasingly being final assembled in Southeast Asia before being exported to other parts of the world. This trend has further strengthened the ties between China and ASEAN. Closer economic and trade ties between China and ASEAN could have a positive impact on the restructuring of global supply chains and economic development.

For China, ASEAN has become one of the most important export markets. China's monthly exports of nearly $600 billion indicate that ASEAN has replaced the United States and the European Union as one of China's largest export markets. As trade between China and ASEAN further develops, the ties between the two sides will continue to strengthen and open up more opportunities for economic growth and trade cooperation.

All in all, the changes in trade relations between China and ASEAN reflect the shifting global economic landscape. China's trade center is gradually shifting to Southeast Asia, which is of great significance to the economy of China and ASEAN countries as well as the whole Asian region.

On July 13, China New Office held a press conference on the import and export situation in the first half of 2023, Lu Daliang, spokesman of the General Administration of Customs and Director of the Statistical Analysis Department, introduced at the meeting that ASEAN as a whole is China's largest trading partner, and China's import and export to ASEAN in the first half of the year was 3.08 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.4%. 

Accounted for 15.3% of China's total import and export value in the same period, an increase of 0.5 percentage points over the same period last year.

Lu Daliang said that China and ASEAN are each other's largest trading partners, with a solid foundation for cooperation and huge potential for development. With the deepening of regional economic integration, expanding cooperation areas and smooth trade exchanges in the future, bilateral trade is expected to continue to maintain a good momentum.

In addition, at the 22nd China-Asean (10+1) Economic and Trade Ministers' Meeting, China and ASEAN countries discussed a number of economic and trade cooperation matters.

 The two sides agreed to further deepen the China-Asean comprehensive strategic partnership, expand the scale of trade and investment, accelerate the construction of version 3.0 of the China-Asean Free Trade Area, upgrade the level of regional economic integration, actively expand cooperation in digital economy, e-commerce, green development and other fields, and jointly build a closer China-Asean destiny community.