General

The spring of 2023 is approaching, but some people think that China's foreign trade has entered a "cold winter". Is the situation really so serious? According to statistics, international trade orders are indeed declining, and there are many empty containers in ports of Shanghai, Shenzhen, Ningbo and other cities. This is an indisputable fact, but the situation may not be so severe.

To put it simply, why will foreign trade orders decrease? Who stole our order?

First of all, the weakening of global market demand is the main reason. In 2022, the United States took the lead in raising interest rates. Why should we raise interest rates? Because the epidemic hit the economy in 2020, in order to stimulate the economy, the United States directly distributed money to residents and enterprises, resulting in high inflation. In order to suppress inflation, the Federal Reserve began to raise interest rates. The increase in interest rates will cause the money circulating in the market to be deposited in banks, and residents will have no money in their hands if they do not distribute money.

You should know that the US dollar is the global currency in circulation, and the increase in interest rate of the US dollar has a great impact on the global economy. Driven by the increase in interest rate of the US dollar, many countries in Europe have also increased interest rates. On the one hand, prices are high, on the other hand, there is no money in hand, and residents in developed countries in Europe and the United States have reduced consumption, which has led to a decline in foreign trade orders of Asian manufacturing countries.

From the perspective of supply and demand, Europe and the United States are typical consumer-oriented countries with strong consumption capacity, while China and Vietnam in Asia are production-oriented countries, and international trade export orders mainly come from Europe and the United States.

However, the US dollar interest rate increase in 2022 has a profound impact on the global economy. The economic downturn caused by the interest rate increase in Europe and the United States will further manifest. The economic downturn will lead to a decline in demand, so our foreign trade orders will be reduced.

In fact, not only China's international trade orders have declined, but Vietnam's foreign trade orders have also declined. According to the statistics of Vietnam's trade unions, from September last year to January this year, thousands of enterprises in Vietnam were forced to stop work or lay off more than 500000 people due to the reduction of orders.

All kinds of signs indicate that the global economic crisis is approaching step by step, and it is not based on human will!

Secondly, the reduction of foreign trade orders is also related to the backflow of manufacturing industry advocated by the United States and the reduction of dependence on China's supply chain. In the first three quarters of last year, the United States imported US $449 billion from Europe and US $418 billion from China. The United States has significantly increased its import from Europe.

At the same time, Apple is transferring part of its industrial chain to India and Vietnam, and the United States, together with Japan and the Netherlands, is once again cracking down on China's semiconductor chip industry. In short, the United States is trying to reshape the global industrial chain

In addition, Vietnam, India and other markets have also snatched some orders. Due to the further decline of global market demand, the situation of more wolves and less meat has been caused. International trade enterprises have gone overseas to snatch orders. Labor in Vietnam and other markets is cheaper, and it is not much worse than us in labor-intensive industries. Some orders are inevitable to be snatched.

At present, China's manufacturing industry is in the period of industrial transformation and upgrading. The manufacturing industry is still "big but not strong". The advantage of low-end manufacturing cannot be maintained all the time. The high-tech and high-end manufacturing industry has not yet achieved a complete breakthrough. In particular, semiconductor chips, which cost trillions of dollars to import each year, are more expensive than imported oil. Once China can make a major breakthrough in the semiconductor field, This situation will be greatly changed.

As for the problem of container accumulation in ports, in addition to the decline of foreign trade orders, there is also the impact of the supply and demand of the container market. From 2020 to 2021, China's international trade exports grew rapidly, resulting in "one container is hard to find", the price of shipping rose sharply, the large number of containers produced, and the changes in the supply and demand market led to the problem of empty container accumulation.