On June 19th, China’s Ministry of Finance announced that from the next July 1st, this country would correct policies on 2,831 export articles under the direction of reducing tax refund in order to lessen trade surplus.

Reducing tax refund is expected to ease strain in relations to its main trading partners because 2,831 export articles equivalent to 37% of China’s total current exports registered in customs book.

Among these articles, ones consume large amounts of energy and heavily pollute the environment such as cement, gas, salt, and etc are in the top positions in the list of the reduced.

The level of the reduction of tax refund will be lower and five different levels, in turn 17%, 13%, 11%, 9%, and 5% will be applied under depending on each type of products.

With the reduction of tax refund, China’s Ministry of Finance believes that selling prices of several export articles will increase significantly, which decreases the quantity of exports. This will reduce strain in relations to its main trading partners.

For long-term development, this policy is expected to balance the economic growth of the country under the more sustainable and environment-friendly direction that many countries are following.

China currently is under pressure from the US on reducing trade surplus. This country has been implementing some measures in several recent months to minimize trade surplus, including reducing export duty refund to some products above, especially steel ones.

China has said many times that this country has been attempting to reduce trade surplus to the US but required the US to remove restrictions on exporting hi-tech devices to China.