General

On the 20th, the State Council Information Office held a series of themed press conferences on the "opening of authoritative departments". Yu Jianhua, Director General of the General Administration of Customs, said that China's foreign trade started steadily and the trend was good.

According to customs data, in terms of scale, the total export value in the first two months reached 3.5 trillion yuan, a record high of 0.9%, better than expected. "The total value of imports and exports exceeds 6 trillion yuan, which is the second time in history," Yu Jianhua said. In terms of composition, during the epidemic period, China took the lead in resuming work and production, and the export of epidemic prevention materials and "residential economy" products increased significantly, raising the foreign trade base. After calculation, if the "one-time factor" is excluded, the import and export growth in the first two months of this year will exceed 10%. From a trend perspective, customs data show that China's foreign trade imports and exports have significantly stabilized since February, with a month-on-month growth of more than 15% in the last week of February compared to the previous week. "From the perspective of neighboring countries," compared to the economies around which data have been released, China's foreign trade performance is good. "

However, it should also be noted that the development of foreign trade still faces many difficulties and challenges, with the weakening of foreign demand receiving the most attention. High global inflation and sluggish growth in major economies have continued to impact global trade. The World Trade Organization predicts that global trade in goods will be weak in the first quarter of this year, with an expected annual growth of only 1%. In addition, some countries have strongly promoted "decoupling and chain breaking", increasing geopolitical risks, and recent fluctuations in the financial markets of some Western countries have also had an impact on the global trade environment, increasing the external challenges of promoting stability and quality in China's foreign trade.

Yu Jianhua emphasized that from a positive and optimistic perspective, in the first two months, the customs newly registered 46000 foreign trade business entities, indicating that everyone's confidence is recovering. In terms of orders, customs data show that the proportion of enterprises with increased new export orders has continuously increased. The total export of the "new three types" of electric vehicles, lithium batteries, and solar batteries increased by 60%, while the import and export of cross-border e-commerce increased by 15.8%. According to customs data, in terms of trade diversification, China's import and export to countries along the "the Belt and Road" increased by more than 10%, and its total import and export to other RCEP members increased by more than 3%.

Recently, there have been reports that the number of empty containers in China's ports has increased. Yu Jianhua analyzed and believed that there were reasons for excessive new container deliveries in the previous period, low domestic storage costs, and a large number of empty containers returning in the short term after the relief of the foreign epidemic, as well as seasonal regularity. "A large number of empty containers are ready to be shipped in China's ports, which to some extent reflects that the international market is still optimistic about our export capacity in the next stage." Yu Jianhua said that customs data showed that since late February, the volume of export containers has continued to grow.

Yu Jianhua believes that the foreign trade situation is severe and complex, but it also contains many opportunities, and the difficulties are more global. China's competitive advantage remains significant. With the overall improvement of the economic situation, the momentum of a smooth start to foreign trade in the first two months is expected to continue. We are full of confidence in achieving the goal of promoting stability and improving quality in foreign trade this year.