General

The offline exhibition of the 133rd Canton Fair successfully concluded on May 5th in Guangzhou. According to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce, on-site export transactions at this year's Canton Fair reached 21.69 billion US dollars, of which 3.42 billion US dollars were sold online from April 15th to May 4th, which was better than expected. But looking forward to the full year of this year, China's international trade export growth still faces great pressure.

From a demand perspective, the global economic growth rate is slowing down, inflation is high, some labor-intensive industries are relocating, and some countries are forming targeted and exclusive small circles. Insufficient demand is currently the main challenge faced by international trade exports. From a supply perspective, in the first quarter of this year, private enterprises accounted for over 61% of China's total export value, mainly in general trade but subject to export orders; Foreign-funded enterprises account for about 21%, mainly engaged in import processing trade and general trade, but are regulated by the parent company; State owned enterprises only account for 8%, and their proportion in imports and exports is lower than that of private and foreign enterprises. In view of this, China's foreign trade exports urgently need to shift from passive to proactive.

The requirements of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) are to promote high-level opening up, rely on China's super large market advantage, attract global resource elements with domestic systemic circulation, enhance the linkage effect of domestic and international markets and resources, and improve the quality and level of trade and investment cooperation. Faced with internal and external challenges, we need to rely on China's established global largest and most comprehensive manufacturing system and supply capacity to meet the diverse needs of the international market, leverage our comparative advantages, sustainably enhance the position of Chinese enterprises in the global value chain, avoid falling into a passive and passive international cycle, and actively shape a high-level proactive international cycle.

At the government level, effective measures should be taken to promote stable growth of export scale, innovative development of export methods, diversified development of export markets, and optimization of export support business environment. At the same time, key industries should play a leading role in export. According to data from the General Administration of Customs, the total export growth of electric passenger vehicles, lithium batteries, and solar cells in the first quarter was nearly 67%, reflecting the significant promotion effect of China's manufacturing industry transformation and upgrading on exports. This indicates that improving the export level of high-tech and high-value added manufactured products will enable Chinese enterprises to create new consumer demand through original innovation and integrated innovation A new path to enhance product export competitiveness and create a new space for international trade markets.

Due to changes in the comparative advantages of the value-added links in the global value chain and geopolitical factors, many foreign and private enterprises have relocated the final assembly process. However, their high-end raw materials and complex components will need to rely on imports from China for a long time. As upstream Chinese enterprises, they need to improve total factor productivity, control costs, and stabilize intermediate product exports through technological progress under the premise of compliance

While stabilizing the systemic circulation of the national economy, state-owned enterprises should speed up their integration into the international economic cycle. They should regard China and the partner countries and regions of the "the Belt and Road" initiative, RCEP and other free trade agreements as a unified market, allocate factors according to the comparative advantages of the production and service links of the global value chain, achieve "origin sales" of intermediate products through exports, and achieve "real estate sales" of final manufactured products through investment, or export to third parties, or sell back to China, Enhance the role of state-owned enterprises in China's exports.

Private enterprises should learn from the experience of internationalization of Japanese and Korean enterprises, strengthen integrated innovation, build a global sales network, and transform passive order taking into the supply of Chinese brand specialized new and special products that meet international consumer preferences and are cheap and high-quality. They should sustainably achieve the concept of "in China, for the world", and further improve their position in China's exports.

Foreign enterprises are an indispensable part of China's high-quality economic development and the best strategic link point for building an internal and external dual cycle. They should rely on the pilot free trade zone, take the implementation of national treatment as the core, truly achieve the same treatment for domestic and foreign funded enterprises, give full play to China's advantages in manufacturing industries, stabilize and increase the attraction of multinational enterprises based in China to export products and services to the world, share the "the Belt and Road" initiative The opportunities and market space brought by RCEP and other bilateral free trade agreements in China.

Transportation methods play a positive role in promoting exports. On the basis of stabilizing ocean freight, we should integrate air freight resources, utilize the superior geographical location and infrastructure of the three major aviation hubs of Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou, and develop the export of high value-added products in China; To further tap into the potential of China Europe freight trains and expand China's land cargo exports; To leverage the advantages of multimodal transportation, optimize the allocation between sea, water, railway, road, air, and pipeline transportation, enhance collaborative capabilities, and effectively promote the export of goods.

Innovation in trade methods and connotations is an important path to stabilize China's exports. We should actively expand cross-border service trade, enhance the level of knowledge intensive service exports, and support productive service industry enterprises in expanding cross-border service functions; To develop knowledge trade, on the basis of strengthening intellectual property protection, promote technology exports and license exports; To develop digital trade, fully tap into the potential of cross-border e-commerce development, encourage innovation in cross-border e-commerce models, and further enhance the role of e-commerce in promoting China's goods exports; We need to vigorously develop green trade, clarify the current and future key areas of international green and low-carbon product goods, and lay the foundation for exploring the export market of green products.

We should absorb foreign experience, strive to build an overseas economic and trade network that meets the needs of enterprises, transform merchants into merchants, encourage large industrial and trade enterprises with a large amount of international business, and large cross-border e-commerce platform enterprises to open offices in export destinations. We should also encourage institutions such as the China Council for the Promotion of Trade, the Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export, and industry associations to open offices in the source and export destinations of orders for small and medium-sized enterprises and service outsourcing enterprises, and create enterprises Overseas economic and trade networks at three levels: business associations and government regulatory agencies.

China is a major consumer and importer of commodities, and the internationalization of commodity trading platforms is an important part of China's development of offshore trade. It is necessary to use various futures exchanges in China as the main platform to continuously launch more tradable commodities, enhance global resource allocation capabilities, and expand China's import and export trade; We need to deepen the application of free trade accounts in the pilot free trade zone, establish an "international version" of a truly meaningful commodity trading platform for foreign merchants as member enterprises, and develop offshore trade in conjunction with commodity trading.

The current world economic situation is unpredictable, and the external environment is still severe and complex. The development of global trade will be affected by multiple factors, and the export prospects will still be under pressure. Especially, factors such as weak external demand and geopolitical factors will bring greater challenges to China's export development. To achieve the goal of promoting stability and quality in foreign trade throughout the year and continue to play the supporting role of exports in the economy, arduous efforts are still needed. International trade export enterprises need to carefully plan Implement precise policies and innovate to overcome difficulties and stabilize exports.