A container ship at Qingdao Port in East China's Shandong Province on May 23 Photo: IC

Trade between China and Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) increased rapidly in 2018, and analysts said Wednesday that economic and trade cooperation is expected to be accelerated to ease the pressure caused by the ongoing China-US trade war.

In 2018, trade between China and 16 CEECs reached $82.2 billion, up 55.4 percent over 2011, and the influence of the cooperation keeps expanding, Li Chenggang, an official with the Ministry of Commerce, said at a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday.

As China commemorated the 40th anniversary of reform and opening-up in 2018, "the trade war between China and the US won't retard our determination to open our market to the world, and the door will open wider and wider," Bai Ming, deputy director of the Ministry of Commerce's International Market Research Institute, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Moreover, the market of the CEEC region is less saturated than those of developed countries while being more mature than Africa's. Thus, the region makes a great trade partner for China, not to mention the improved logistics provided by China-Europe freight trains, Bai said.

From January to April, bilateral trade rose 7.9 percent year-on-year to $28.55 billion. But even with a relatively high growth pace, it only accounted for 13 percent of the overall trade between China and the EU, according to Li. "It shows there's great potential in bilateral trade," he noted.

Li also said that there are three aspects for cooperation expansion - equipment manufacturing, agriculture and the services sector.