General

From January to February 2023, Taicang Port in Jiangsu Province completed a foreign trade container throughput of 775000 TEUs and a foreign trade cargo throughput of 17.634 million tons.

On March 20th, Yu Jianhua, Director of the General Administration of Customs, stated at a series of press conferences on the "Opening of Authoritative Department Talks" held by the State Administration for Foreign Trade, that China's overall foreign trade has started steadily and the trend is improving. In the face of a complex and severe foreign trade development environment, the General Administration of Customs will also study new policy measures, including smooth import and export logistics, support for the development of new industries, and optimization of the port business environment.

The trend of foreign trade growth is improving

From the indicators monitored by customs, such as the number of foreign trade operators, the month on month growth of imports and exports, and the number of export containers, it can be seen that foreign trade is showing a trend of recovery and improvement, and the confidence of foreign trade enterprises is gradually accumulating.

Data shows that in the first two months, the number of newly registered foreign trade business entities by customs reached 46000; The import and export volume of foreign trade in the last week of February increased by more than 15% compared to the previous week; Since late February, the export box usage has also continued to grow.

The continuous growth of export container usage has responded to the recent media attention to the issue of empty container stacking at ports. Yu Jianhua said that this phenomenon was mainly due to the factors such as the large number of new containers in the previous period, the low domestic storage cost, and the large number of empty containers returning in a short time after the relief of the foreign epidemic, which also played a seasonal role.

At the same time, the development of foreign trade also faces a series of challenges. High global inflation and weak growth in major economies have posed a sustained 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.

New measures to stabilize foreign trade are brewing

In response to the situation faced by the development of foreign trade mentioned above, the General Administration of Customs stated that it will study new policy measures.

Yu Jianhua introduced: "Last year, the General Administration of Customs successively introduced 23 support measures, which are currently being evaluated. Anything that can be retained will be retained to ensure the continuity of the policy. On this basis, we will conduct research and research to address the pain points, difficulties, and bottlenecks of enterprises, and also study new policy measures

Specifically, the new policy measures include four aspects: smooth import and export logistics, optimizing the port business environment, reducing enterprise costs, and supporting the development of new business models.

In terms of optimizing the business environment at ports, Zhao Zenglian, Director of the General Office of Customs, revealed at the press conference that the General Administration of Customs is working with relevant parties to accelerate the expansion and construction of important border ports. At the same time, the General Administration of Customs is guiding Hainan Province to implement the layout plan of free trade ports, accelerate the construction of free trade port shores, and provide port facility guarantees for the next scheduled closure and operation.

Further support the development of new formats such as cross-border e-commerce

Cross border e-commerce, as a new form of international trade development, is showing a vigorous development trend. The General Administration of Customs stated that it will innovate the customs supervision model for cross-border e-commerce, achieving precise supervision and rapid customs clearance. At the same time, we support the development of new formats such as market procurement trade and bonded maintenance.

Sun Yuning, Deputy Director of the General Administration of Customs, introduced at the press conference that in the next stage, the General Administration of Customs will introduce more measures in the supervision of cross-border e-commerce. This includes supporting cross-border e-commerce enterprises in electronic tax payment, promoting the "inspection before loading" of export LCL goods, optimizing the overseas warehouse declaration process, and improving import and export return measures.

Looking forward to the overall foreign trade situation this year, Yu Jianhua said that, in general, 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 confident that China's foreign trade will achieve the goal of promoting stability and improving quality this year