General

Since the beginning of 2023, China's foreign trade has been under pressure due to the slowdown in foreign demand, the accelerated restructuring of the international supply chain pattern, and the increasingly complex world political and economic environment.

According to customs data, in the first two months of this year, China's foreign trade import and export totaled 6.18 trillion yuan, including export of 3.5 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.9%. The scale reached a record high in the same period of history, while import of 2.68 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.9%. The smooth opening of the foreign trade economy also reflects the challenges it is facing.

It takes time to heal the huge impact of the epidemic that has lasted for three years on the economies of all countries. China has been trying to keep its pace and actively share with the world. In response to the uncertainty of the external environment, the Central Economic Work Conference proposed that more efforts should be made to promote the stability of the scale and optimization of the structure of foreign trade in 2023.

In the foreign trade economic data of the first two months, the proportion of general trade increased to 64.9% of the total foreign trade economic value; The trend of market diversification is more obvious. The total trade value with ASEAN, the largest trading partner, increased by 9.6%, and the total import and export to countries along the "the Belt and Road" increased by 10.1%; The vitality of private enterprises remains unchanged, and the proportion of total imports and exports exceeds 50%, which reflects that a series of policies and measures to stabilize foreign investment and foreign trade, such as increasing the support of export tax rebates, helping foreign trade enterprises seize orders to expand the market, and giving various trade facilitation measures, are taking effect.

The effect of market diversification is further highlighted

In recent years, the society has paid more attention to foreign trade, and has been on the hot search for a time.

In response, Zhang Jianping, deputy director of the Academic Committee of the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, believes that the decline in exports is mainly reflected in the United States and European markets. The main problem facing these two markets is that they have entered the interest-rate cycle, and the market demand has been suppressed to some extent. The stock of stocks during the epidemic of the previous two years has not been digested. All aspects of the situation are combined, and the economic growth of these economies has been sluggish since this year The slowdown in economic growth has affected China's exports in the markets of developed countries.

"Although the global foreign trade market demand has shrunk and the pressure on foreign trade has increased since the end of last year, the foreign trade data from January to February show that China's overall situation of stabilizing foreign trade is still good, and China's foreign trade competitiveness has withstood the test in general." Zhang Jianping particularly mentioned that the trade creation effect of the RCEP market is significant, especially the export growth between China and ASEAN countries, China, Japan and South Korea is satisfactory, The growth of intraregional trade in Asia has offset the decline of European and American markets to a certain extent, making the overall foreign trade show a relatively stable situation.

The export market has blossomed more and the import has become more diversified, which is reflected in the local economic and trade data. As the exhibition period of the 3rd China Central and Eastern European Countries Expo approaches, the Ningbo market enters the "Central and Eastern European Time". According to the statistics of Ningbo Customs, from January to February, Ningbo's economy and trade with Central and Eastern European countries ushered in a "good start". Ningbo's imports from Central and Eastern European countries reached 2.69 billion yuan, up 84.9% year on year.

"Recently, special products from Central and Eastern European countries have successively entered Ningbo port and been sold throughout the country. This time, the imported products include moisturizing essence, wrinkle removing face cream, etc., which are the flagship products of Central and Eastern European countries, hoping to bring more choices to domestic consumers." Chen Yi, head of Ningbo Dijia Weida Trading Co., Ltd., introduced. According to statistics, from January to February, Ningbo imported 1.394 million yuan of cosmetics and toiletries from Central and Eastern European countries.

Zhang Jianping also pointed out that due to the relatively bleak growth prospects of the United States and Europe, the World Bank estimates that the United States has only 0.5% growth, and the European Union is also hovering on the brink of recession. Therefore, the focus of foreign trade development this year is to expand the diversification of the foreign trade market, especially by increasing the implementation of RCEP rules and tapping the market potential of RCEP partner members. At the same time, we should also build the "the Belt and Road" with high quality, and strive to enhance the market potential of the "the Belt and Road" partner members and emerging market countries through mutual promotion of trade and investment, so as to make due contributions to foreign trade.

The foreign trade competitiveness of private enterprises is further enhanced

In the first two months, the import and export of 383 "specialized and special new giant" enterprises in Beijing was 1.93 billion yuan, up 16.5%; "Double independent" enterprises' import and export amounted to 69.26 billion yuan, an increase of 12.1%.

"Since this year, Beijing Customs has promoted a new round of" four advantages, four improvements and five promotion "service projects, continued to promote the stability and quality of the capital's foreign trade economy, and helped Beijing's" five promotion "linkage services and integration into the new development pattern. In the first two months, the capital's foreign trade economy has witnessed frequent highlights and remarkable results." The relevant head of Beijing Customs told reporters that the export of new energy products in Beijing has increased significantly since the beginning of 2023. In the first two months, Beijing's exports of solar cells, electric passenger cars and lithium batteries totaled 1.98 billion yuan, up 620%. Among them, solar cells reached 1.17 billion yuan, up 65.3 times; Electric passenger cars were 460 million yuan, up 177.1%; Lithium batteries reached 350 million yuan, up 285.2%.

"In recent years, the export of private enterprises has played the role of the first main force in foreign trade, and the proportion has gradually increased, which shows that Chinese enterprises with independent brands, independent intellectual property rights and independent innovation capabilities have made rapid progress in improving the competitiveness of foreign trade. Private enterprises also play an increasingly important role in this process, especially now 70% of China's innovation is completed by private enterprises Our global competitiveness is highly correlated with private enterprises. " Zhang Jianping said.

Further release of RCEP corporate dividend

At 11:00 a.m. on March 3, with the sound of "tick and tick" of the printer, after the first RCEP certificate of origin for Indonesia in Beijing was issued by Zhongguancun Customs, 10 heavy trucks exported by Beijing Futian International Trade Co., Ltd. to Indonesia set foot on the "road to stay abroad".

At the beginning of this year, RCEP officially entered into force for Indonesia. Since then, on the basis of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, Indonesia has granted zero-tariff treatment to more than 700 tariff lines of products to China. "The import tariff of our products in Indonesia has been reduced from 10% under the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement to zero tariff. Under the guidance of the customs, this certificate alone can save hundreds of thousands of yuan in tariff costs. In the first two months of this year, Beijing Customs has issued 756 RCEP certificates. The import and export of Beijing to other member countries of RCEP reached 110.41 billion yuan, up 3.8%, accounting for 19.2% of the total import and export value of the region in the same period.

This year is the second year since the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) came into force. Tariff concessions and other benefits brought by RCEP continue to help domestic enterprises expand the international market, and help foreign trade enterprises seize opportunities, maintain orders and expand the market. The foreign trade data of the first two months showed that China's imports and exports to other RCEP member countries totaled 1.91 trillion yuan, up 3.1% year on year.

"This cartoon blanket is one of our main export commodities and is very popular with overseas buyers," said Sheng Zhongxian, the manager of Gemma Home Textile Business Department, pointing to the newly finished blanket in the production workshop. Jima Home Textile mainly sells all kinds of home textile fabrics, and its products are mainly sold to Japan, South Korea and other countries.

"Through the tariff preference of RCEP, the tax rate of our travel blankets exported to Japan has been reduced from 5.3% to 4.6%, which can not be underestimated by 0.7 percentage points, which is very helpful for us to improve the price competitiveness." Sheng Zhongxian said that in the first two months of this year, Gemma Home Textile handled five RCEP certificates of origin, involving the export value of more than 1.6 million yuan.

According to statistics from Hangzhou Customs, a total of 8609 RCEP certificates of origin were issued in the first two months of this year, with a value of 2.433 billion yuan, realizing a tax concession of about 27.58 million yuan for import and export goods across the province. RCEP not only helps many small and micro enterprises such as "Gemma Home Textile" to improve their product competitiveness, but also is a "charge" for developing new overseas markets.

The enterprise staff of Zhejiang Xinhecheng Special Materials Co., Ltd. also felt the benefits of RCEP. "The customs regularly push the country of origin management policy, so that we can timely understand the tariff reduction of export goods, which helps us to explore potential business opportunities and better expand business," said Luo Jinjing, sales manager of Zhejiang Xinhecheng Special Materials Co., Ltd. As a national specialized "small giant" enterprise, "Xinhecheng" has actively expanded the RCEP market, and the market competitiveness of export products has been further improved.

In order to help more foreign trade enterprises make full use of the RCEP policy, Hangzhou Customs, in conjunction with the Industry Association, carried out research on key industries such as textile, machinery manufacturing, petrochemical and so on, sorted out the difficulties of enterprise declaration and the access standards of export countries, and gave detailed guidance to enterprises. Through the analysis of import and export data, actively contact the enterprises that can enjoy the benefits but have not applied for the certificate of origin, introduce the tax reduction mechanism one-to-one, and guide the application method. In addition, it has also independently developed the "RCEP smart benefit application", promoted the "self-service printing+smart review" mode of the certificate of origin, and helped enterprises enjoy the policy dividend more quickly and conveniently.

Wang Wei, deputy director of the Customs Office of Beijing Customs, also said that in order to further enhance the competitiveness of enterprises in the international market, Beijing Customs has helped enterprises to familiarize themselves with tariff concessions and rules of origin through the "customs chief delivers policies to the door" activity and online and offline special training. "We will further expand the personalized regulatory service model of a wider range and at more levels, and accurately formulate assistance measures for" one enterprise, one policy "to provide an inexhaustible source of power for enterprises to" go out "."