Electronics

Shanghai Waigaoqiao Port Area Haitong International Automobile Terminal, 540 new energy vehicles of the Great Wall brand are shipped to South Africa on Ro-Ro ships; Henan Volt New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., the machines on all production lines in the production workshop are running non-stop, and is busy to catch up with the international trade export orders for lithium batteries; At the edge of Maowusu sandy land, more than 1000 builders installed photovoltaic brackets and modules on the construction site of the National Energy Group Ningdong 2 megawatt composite photovoltaic base project

In 2022, China's foreign trade withstood the impact of multiple unexpected factors, and the total import and export value of international trade exceeded the 40 trillion yuan mark for the first time. Among them, the export of electric vehicles, photovoltaic products and lithium batteries increased by 131.8%, 67.8% and 86.7% respectively year on year, and electricity, light and lithium became the "new three" of foreign trade export.

What are the reasons behind the fact that products with high technology, high added value and leading the green transformation have become new growth points for exports? How to improve the industrial chain supply chain in order to maintain the good export trend? The reporter conducted interviews on these issues.

Stabilize foreign trade and promote the economy. The "new three" of electricity, light and lithium have become the growth points of international trade exports. Accelerate the overseas landing and transformation while actively exporting

As a low-carbon and digital integrated development industry, new energy vehicles have a strong driving role in the national economy. According to the statistics of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China's automobile exports reached 3.111 million in 2022, up 54.4% year on year, ranking second in the world. The main driving force of China's automobile export growth is new energy vehicles, which accounted for 21.83% of the year's exports.

In addition to the whole vehicle, the supporting lithium battery is also the key to export. According to the statistics of the General Administration of Customs of China, the export value of lithium ion batteries in China last year was close to 342.656 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth rate of 20.2 percentage points. From the perspective of export countries, the top five countries of domestic lithium battery exports are the United States, Germany, South Korea, the Netherlands and Vietnam, accounting for 57.6% of the total exports.

Recently, the power battery enterprise Ningde Times officially launched its factory in Arnstart, Thuringen, Germany. The annual output will reach about 30 million battery cells after full production, and can assemble 185000 to 350000 electric vehicles. As for setting the first overseas factory in a country with developed automobile industry, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of Ningde Times, said that he hoped to bring the world's most advanced power battery technology to Germany. "By forming a localized power battery supply capacity in Europe, we can further approach European customers, provide more timely and effective product solutions, and better and faster respond to customer needs."

In the "rush to grab orders at sea" that has lasted since the year before, enterprises have been looking for orders and exploring business opportunities overseas. For Trina Solar, the leading photovoltaic enterprise, overseas order grabbing has never stopped. Chen Cheng, head of Trina Solar's overseas business, runs abroad half of the time every year.

"The team members are very confident and feel full of energy." It is understood that Trina Solar went to sea to "grab orders" and returned with a full load, and won a batch of major orders and long-term orders, and the order scale is large, which is expected to account for 30% - 50% of the total sales in 2023.

As one of the "new three types" of export, the performance of photovoltaic products is also very bright. At the "Photovoltaic Industry 2022 Development Review and 2023 Situation Outlook Seminar" held on February 16, Wang Bohua, honorary chairman of China Photovoltaic Industry Association, said that the total export of photovoltaic products exceeded 50 billion US dollars, with a year-on-year growth of more than 80%, hitting a historical high. At the same time, he predicted that the new installed capacity of PV in China will reach 95-120GW (GW, unit of PV installed capacity) in 2023, accounting for more than 30% of the global new installed capacity.

Among all PV products, which categories are more popular in overseas markets?

"From the perspective of past market performance, modules have always accounted for a high proportion in the export of photovoltaic products. Last year, the export of silicon wafers and battery wafers has also increased significantly. It can be said that the export of photovoltaic products has become an important grip for China to stabilize foreign trade and promote the economy." Shi Zili, a researcher at the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that even though the high price of silicon materials drives the price of modules to rise, Last year, the PV market still maintained a strong growth momentum. This is enough to prove that the photovoltaic products exported by China have obvious competitiveness in the world.

New energy products comply with the trend of low carbon, and international competitiveness is the comprehensive result of core technology, market cultivation and industrial policy

At 9:18 on February 8, a sea-rail intermodal train loaded with 120 domestic new energy vehicles departed from Changzhou railway freight yard to Ningbo Zhoushan Port. After arriving at Ningbo Zhoushan Port, the batch of new energy vehicles will be exported to many countries in Europe by sea. This is the first new energy vehicle export train of the Yangtze River Delta Railway after this year. In recent years, Chongqing, Guangdong, Henan and other places have successfully launched the China-EU new energy vehicle special train, and set up a "green channel" for automobile export.

In recent years, China's exports are no longer limited to low-value-added categories such as clothing and handicrafts. The increase in exports of high-value-added and high-tech products has become a bright spot in the high-quality development of China's foreign trade, especially in the sub-sectors such as new energy.

  The longer industrial chain and the larger scale of the supporting system required show that China has gradually built a strong international competitiveness in complex industrial products.

As the new driving force of China's foreign trade exports, the development of new energy products is not a smooth road. Among them, electric vehicles and photovoltaic products have gone through two different development paths and are representative in the development of China's export industry.

Wu Qiang told reporters that China's photovoltaic products developed rapidly at the beginning of this century, with the main markets and raw materials in foreign countries, which is a typical development model of "two ends in the outside world, big import and big export". Affected by the international financial crisis, China's photovoltaic industry has experienced serious overcapacity and is in trouble. After experiencing market competition and training, China's photovoltaic industry has mastered core technologies in recent years and has strong global competitiveness. In the process of competition with foreign enterprises such as Tesla, a number of local enterprises with independent intellectual property rights have emerged, and their products have been recognized in the domestic market, and then go to the international market.

"Although the development path of the two is different, there are common driving factors behind them." Wu Qiang said that the first is to master the core technology, starting from technology introduction and learning, and gradually master the core technology through independent research and development to form its own technological advantages. The second is the model of "first win at home, then win at abroad". The huge scale of domestic market demand is a prerequisite for cultivating emerging industries. Only enterprises that stand out in domestic competition can have international market competitiveness.

In addition to the strong endogenous power, the global low-carbon trend has also brought gusts of wind to the export of new energy products in China.

On February 7, the British Minister of Commerce and the Minister of Transport announced that the British government would provide 113 million pounds (about 926 million yuan) of financial support for electric air taxis and hydrogen-powered aircraft to promote zero-carbon flight; On February 3, the United States Senate of Minnesota passed the 100% Clean Energy Act, which requires utilities to increase their renewable energy power generation to 55% by 2035, and make the state transition to 100% carbon-free energy by 2040. So far, the United States has committed to 100% use of clean or renewable energy in 13 states

"From the perspective of the international market, the importance of new energy and low carbon has been significantly increased, which is also one of the important reasons for the good performance of the above-mentioned new energy products in export." Zhang Liqun, a researcher of the Macroeconomic Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, analyzed that achieving rapid and healthy economic growth without damaging the environment at the same time, low carbon economy has become the future development trend of all countries in the world. This global trend will promote scientific and technological innovation of Chinese enterprises, improve the scientific and technological level of their products, actively deal with carbon tariff barriers, make the scientific and technological content of China's export products higher and higher, and promote the upgrading of industrial structure.

In the face of the complex international economic situation, a perfect supply chain and industrial chain are the stabilizers for the growth of international trade exports, and "win by quality" is the king way for long-term development

The transportation vehicles carrying materials come and go, one product after another on the assembly line is assembled and formed, and the production line is fully opened... When we enter the Galanz plant, we can see a scene of busy production.

As one of the first batch of "going out" Chinese manufacturing enterprises, Glanz's products and services are exported to more than 170 countries and regions, and has registered brands in more than 150 countries and regions. The relevant person in charge of Galanz said, "Among them, the countries of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) are the key markets of Galanz, mainly exporting microwave ovens, ovens, refrigerators, washing machines and other products." According to the terms of the RCEP, the tariffs of some appliances of Galanz have been reduced, for example, the tariffs of products exported from international trade to ASEAN and other countries and regions have been reduced from 10% to 5%, greatly improving the competitiveness of products.

As the largest free trade agreement in the world, RCEP has been in force for more than a year, and the regional trade in agricultural products, automobiles and other goods, as well as logistics, cross-border e-commerce and other service trade have flourished, making the layout of relevant industries more flexible to comply with the principle of efficiency, and promoting the reasonable layout of the supply chain of industrial chains among member countries.

The first anniversary of the official entry into force of RCEP, the tenth anniversary of the "the Belt and Road"... While enjoying the policy dividend, China's foreign trade enterprises are also facing a complex international economic situation.

"Over the past three years, China's relatively complete supply chain and industrial chain, combined with China's achievements in responding to the epidemic, have supported China's export to maintain a relatively high growth rate. However, with the high inflation, the protracted Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the accelerated restructuring of the global industrial chain, major economies such as the United States and Europe are facing the risk of recession. On the whole, the pressure on exports this year is further increasing." Zhang Liqun said, How to play a positive role and stabilize export growth in the context of increased pressure is one of the major tasks currently facing us.

The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward "accelerating the construction of a powerful country in trade", and emphasized "promoting the optimization and upgrading of trade in goods", "innovating the development mechanism of trade in services", and "developing digital trade". The Central Economic Work Conference held at the end of 2022 proposed to promote high-level opening up and improve the quality and level of trade and investment cooperation.

In Zhang Liqun's view, "winning by quality" is the king's way. "When we focus on export growth, we should not only see dark horse industries such as the 'new three kinds', but also pay special attention to the traditional manufacturing industry and other old industries." The textile industry and electrical industry, which have been tested by the international market competition for many years, have opened their markets in the international market with good quality and comprehensive cost performance, and at the same time have steadily occupied market share in the continuous upgrading. Taking Galanz as an example, from the production of down jackets to the production of microwave ovens, to the production and development of a full range of intelligent home appliances, from manual workshops to automated production lines, to today's intelligent unmanned workshops, stable and high-quality products continue to make important contributions to exports.

"Considering that China's import and export scale has taken the lead in the world, what should be expected is the sustainable natural growth based on the transformation and upgrading of China's industry and the gradual enhancement of its competitiveness." Looking ahead, Wu Qiang proposed to strengthen the opening beyond the commodity and factor markets, focusing on the expansion of institutional openness in terms of rules, regulations, management and standards, which is the key point in China's new round of high-level opening-up, It also lays a common institutional foundation and an equal institutional standard for building a new development pattern of double circulation. At the same time, China should actively promote and participate in various bilateral and regional free trade agreements, and build a larger and more open regional market.