General

This data really surprised me. In January 2023, Hong Kong's foreign trade experienced the largest decline in 70 years, with exports down 36.7% and imports down 30.2%.

So what signals does the sharp decline in Hong Kong's foreign trade release? What impact will this have on our economic trend this year?

In fact, the decline in Hong Kong's foreign trade has appeared since last year. In November 2022, Hong Kong's exports in a single month hit a 70-year low.

However, the decline at that time was only 24.1%. However, in January this year, the year-on-year decline directly expanded to 36.7%.

Such a sharp decline in a short period of time will inevitably affect the foreign trade of the mainland.

As we all know, Hong Kong's geographical location is very special. It mainly plays the role of entrepot trade in our international trade import and export. It is simply understood as a transit station. Many of our goods are transported to Hong Kong and then to the world through Hong Kong.

According to the statistics of the General Administration of Customs, in 2022, our total international trade exports were about 24 trillion yuan, while the mainland's exports to Hong Kong were 20.23 trillion yuan, accounting for 84%.

In other words, once Hong Kong's exports suffer, the mainland's exports will be affected.

Although we have not yet released the import and export data of January, it is estimated that the data are not very good from the current situation.

Of course, there is also a group of data to support this conclusion. According to the official statistics released by Hong Kong, the overall value of exports to Asia fell by 41.4% in January 2023 compared with January 2022. In this region, the overall value of exports to most major destinations recorded a decline, Japan fell by 50%, Singapore fell by 41.4%, and Vietnam fell by 41.7%.

Of course, in addition to Asia, the overall export value of some destinations in other regions also fell sharply, for example, the United States fell 28.8%, the United Kingdom fell 27%, and Germany fell 40%.

From this data, the conclusion just now has a foothold.

So what is the reason for the serious decline of our exports?

There are two main reasons. First, the external demand is weak. As we all know, last year, the United States took the lead in raising interest rates in response to high inflation, and the intensity is very large. This is why other kids can't stand it, so they follow up. According to the statistics of the Bank for International Settlements, 38 central banks in the world raised interest rates 210 times in total last year, including the Bank of England, the Bank of Korea and the European Central Bank.

The eldest brother and his younger brothers raised interest rates and pulled money back from the market. The economy was naturally inactive, and the demand was naturally weak. They bought four underpants a month, but now they buy one underpants a month. Everyone tightens their belts to live, so trade naturally has little vitality.

Second, the internal industry chain is moved out. The old boy in the United States is very bad. He wants to destroy our industry chain in order to restrict our development. The most representative example is the move out of the Apple industry chain. Previously, 98% of Apple's iPhone phones were produced in China. Now, the old boy has moved part of the industry chain to India and Vietnam. When the industry chain is transferred, the orders are transferred, and the import and export trade volume is naturally reduced.

In addition, since November 10, 2020, the United States has required that all products exported from Hong Kong to the United States cannot be marked as "Hong Kong", but must be marked as "China". Why? Because Hong Kong has the most-favoured-nation treatment of the origin mark, in other words, if the origin of goods is in Hong Kong, the export will enjoy the tariff advantage, but now the United States is playing tricks, and this advantage is gone.

This has a great impact on our foreign trade. According to the statistics of the General Administration of Customs, the growth of our international trade exports in the first three quarters of 2022 was relatively good, but in the fourth quarter, the situation turned sharply downward. At the end of December, the international trade exports fell by 9.9% year-on-year.

So I concluded that the winter of trade is coming.

So what impact will the setback of trade have on our economic trend this year?

As we all know, the three carriages that drive the economy are "export, consumption and investment". Now the carriage of international trade export is a bit weak, so we can only hope on consumption and investment.

First of all, consumption. Although we proposed to stimulate consumption at last year's meeting, it may be difficult to see a substantial increase in consumption this year. The reason is very simple. For people's large consumption, there are only two, namely, buying houses and selling cars. But in the past three years, people have not made much money, so it is difficult to support such large consumption.

As for daily consumption, it is nothing more than catering and entertainment. First of all, catering. According to the big data monitoring of the Ministry of Commerce, during the Spring Festival this year, the sales of key retail and catering enterprises nationwide increased by 6.8% over the same period last year. In addition, the Chinese Cuisine Association also released a survey report on the operation of key catering enterprises during the Spring Festival this year. The data shows that the turnover of relevant catering enterprises interviewed increased by 24.7% over the same period last year, The passenger flow increased by 26% compared with that of the Spring Festival last year.

Although this data looks good, you should note that this year is the first Spring Festival after the liberalization. After three years, it is not easy to walk around. It is inevitable that there will be a wave of retaliatory consumption, but on the contrary, this kind of retaliatory consumption is difficult to last.

In addition, look at entertainment. The largest category of entertainment is tourism. What about the tourism industry?

According to the statistics released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on the culture and tourism market during the Spring Festival holiday in 2023, the number of domestic tourists during the Spring Festival holiday this year was 308 million, up 23.1% year on year, and the total income of domestic tourism was 375.843 billion yuan, up 30% year on year. Does this figure look good, but during the 2019 Spring Festival, the total number of tourists received nationwide was 415 million, and the total tourism revenue was 513.9 billion yuan.

Through comparison, it can be found that although the tourism industry has recovered during the Spring Festival this year, its growth is still slightly weak compared with the peak period. In addition, tourism is also difficult to sustain due to holiday factors. At least in the first half of this year, it should be difficult to have a larger growth rate.

So overall, the consumer end of this year is not very reliable, and perhaps there will be a new wave of growth in consumption next year.

From this point of view, the only way to develop the economy this year is through investment. In fact, we can see from our financial statistics report in January this year that RMB loans increased by 4.9 trillion yuan in January, an increase of 922.7 billion yuan year on year. Separately, household loans increased by 257.2 billion yuan in January, while loans to enterprises and institutions increased by 4.68 trillion yuan, including local governments, state-owned enterprises and private enterprises, What should enterprises and institutions do with so much money? The most important thing is to invest, build projects and build infrastructure. Only in this way can the whole economy be supported.

Now it is March, and our first quarter is about to end. All enterprises have finished their budgets and plans. Then they should rush forward and roll up their sleeves to work in the second quarter.