According to the General Administration of Customs of China, the country's total volume of imports and exports of goods in 2019 hit 31.5 trillion yuan ($4.6 trillion), up 3.4 percent over the previous year, with a trade surplus of 2.92 trillion yuan ($422.9 billion), up 25.4 percent.

Private enterprises have played an important role in this impressive achievement. In 2019, imports and exports of private enterprises stood at 13.5 trillion yuan ($1.9 trillion), up 11.4 percent and accounting for 42.7 percent of China's overall imports and exports, which is an increase of 3.1 percentage points over 2018.

In recent years, market saturation has squeezed businesses' profits and growth space. To cope with the situation, private enterprises have started to double down on their efforts to expand into overseas markets, particularly emerging markets.

In 2019, exports from these enterprises to ASEAN countries, Latin America and Africa rose by 25.6 percent, 11.4 percent and 15.6 percent respectively. Particularly, small and medium-sized private enterprises are trying to explore overseas markets through various channels.

Favorable state policy is an important external factor encouraging private enterprises to go global. Apart from massive tax and fee reductions and import and export mechanism reforms, last year, in order to encourage exports, the government introduced the customhouse bonds insurance, making private enterprises the biggest beneficiaries.

(This is an edited excerpt of an article originally published in Beijing Youth Daily on January 16)