General

Recently, the increase in the number of empty containers at ports has raised concerns about import and export trade this year.

The Director of the General Administration of Customs, Yu Jianhua, responded at a press conference on March 20th that we are also paying attention to the issue of empty containers. This is due to the large amount of new container placement in the previous period, low domestic storage costs, and the short-term significant return of empty containers after the relief of the foreign epidemic, as well as seasonal patterns. A large number of empty containers are waiting 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. According to the latest customs data, the number of export containers has been continuously increasing since late February.

According to data released by the General Administration of Customs, China's total import and export value decreased by 0.8% in the first two months of this year.

Yu Jianhua explained that the General Administration of Customs is closely monitoring the development of foreign trade since March, and the overall view is that the start is stable and the trend is improving. In terms of scale, the total export value in the first two months reached a historic high, increasing by 0.9%, which was better than expected. The total import and export value exceeded 6 trillion yuan, which is the second time in history. The peak of the same period before the epidemic was less than 5 trillion yuan.

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, Yu Jianhua proposed that according to weekly monitoring, China's foreign trade imports and exports have significantly stabilized since February, with a month on month increase of over 15% in the last week of February compared to the previous week. From the perspective of neighboring countries, China's foreign trade performance is good compared to neighboring economies that have already released data.

According to data updated by the General Administration of Customs on March 18th, in US dollars, China's import and export volume in February exceeded 411.2 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 1.3%. China's imports in February reached 19.7 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 4.2%, both ending the four consecutive months of year-on-year growth decline. Although exports fell by 1.3% year-on-year in February to $214 billion, and the growth rate is still negative, the decline has significantly narrowed compared to the past three months, with a decrease of 10.5% in January.

It is undeniable that foreign trade faces many difficulties and challenges, and the weakening of foreign demand has received considerable attention. Yu Jianhua said that high global inflation and sluggish growth of major economies have had a continuous impact on global trade. The World Trade Organization recently predicted that global trade in goods was weak in the first quarter of this year, with an expected growth rate of only 1% for the entire year. In addition, some countries' strong promotion of "decoupling and chain breaking", geopolitical risks, and recent fluctuations in financial markets in some Western countries have had an impact on the global trade environment, which is also an external challenge for China's foreign trade stability and quality improvement.

Under the challenge, it is positive and optimistic that in the first two months, more enterprises have entered the foreign trade field in terms of business entities, and 46000 new foreign trade business entities have been registered by customs, indicating that market confidence is accumulating and recovering.

In terms of orders, according to the tracking and monitoring of the General Administration of Customs, the proportion of enterprises with increased new export order amounts has continuously increased. In terms of new energy, the total export growth of electric vehicles, lithium batteries, and solar cells in the "new three samples" was 60%. The import and export of cross-border e-commerce increased by 15.8%. 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%.

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