General

According to customs data, in the first quarter, Beijing achieved 899.24 billion yuan in foreign trade imports and exports, a year-on-year increase of 11.6%, which is 6.8 percentage points higher than the national import and export growth rate during the same period. It has the largest contribution rate to the national foreign trade growth, reaching 20.8%. On April 25th, a reporter from China Trade Daily learned from the Beijing Customs' Guarding the Country and Promoting Development Special Session, a series of press conferences on the theme of "Implementing the Spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China", that with the deepening of the country's high-level opening up, Beijing's foreign trade has shown resilience and vigorous momentum.

Customs data shows that in the first quarter of this year, the scale of foreign trade enterprises in Beijing remained stable and improving. Currently, there are a total of 73000 customs registered enterprises in Beijing, among which the top 100 key enterprises have an import and export value of 776.76 billion yuan, an increase of 19.5%, accounting for 86.4% of the total import and export value of Beijing during the same period. The headquarters' economic advantage is prominent. During the same period, private enterprises in Beijing achieved a growth rate of 20.2% in import and export, playing a positive role in the overall growth of foreign trade in the region.

At the same time, the main trading partners in the Beijing region have steadily increased. Currently, Beijing enterprises have trade relations with 230 countries and regions. According to customs data, in the first quarter, the top three trading partners in the Beijing region - the European Union, the United States, and ASEAN - achieved a total of 244.03 billion yuan in imports and exports. During the same period, Beijing's import and export to countries jointly building the "the Belt and Road" totaled 448.73 billion yuan, accounting for 49.9%; Import and export to other RCEP member countries reached 161.94 billion yuan, an increase of 3.9%, accounting for 18%. The performance of emerging trading partners is also impressive, with Beijing's imports and exports to Brazil reaching 54.79 billion yuan in the first quarter, an increase of 113.6%. Brazil has risen to become the fourth largest trading partner in the Beijing region.

In addition, the structure of foreign trade commodities in the Beijing region is also stabilizing and improving in quality. In the first quarter, the import and export of high-tech products in the Beijing region amounted to 123.52 billion yuan, accounting for 13.7%, an increase of 2.6 percentage points compared to 2019. During the same period, the import and export proportion of high energy consumption and high emission goods steadily decreased, and the effect of 'Beijing Smart Manufacturing' is increasingly evident, "said Zhang Geping.

The reporter learned from the press conference that in recent years, the development of the foreign trade industry in Beijing has been one of the highlights.

The engine of the Science and Technology Innovation Center is stronger. The "specialized, refined, and innovative" small giant enterprises in Beijing have maintained double-digit export growth for three consecutive years, with imports and exports increasing by 30.2% in the first quarter of this year. On the basis of the explosive growth of new energy product exports last year, customs data shows that exports continued to rise in the first quarter of this year, achieving exports of 2.58 billion yuan, an increase of 4.8 times.

Open platform plays a more "big" role. In the first quarter, the business of Beijing Tianzhu Comprehensive Bonded Zone maintained a strong growth momentum, with imports and exports reaching 33.07 billion yuan, a growth rate that jumped from 15% in the same period last year to 54.1%. With the continuous recovery of Capital Airlines' cargo business, the business of Tianzhu and Daxing Comprehensive Bonded Areas is expected to continue to grow.

The development momentum of the industry is even stronger. In the first quarter, the import and export of medical herbs and drugs in Beijing reached 35.73 billion yuan, an increase of 21.3%; The import and export of integrated circuits reached 18.99 billion yuan, a significant increase of 50.1%; The supervision of inbound and outbound exhibits reached nearly 6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.9 times.

The consumption driven trend is better. In the first quarter, the import of consumer goods at Beijing Airport Port reached 20.27 billion yuan, an increase of 39.3%. Among them, the import of healthcare products reached 14.55 billion yuan, an increase of 85.5%, accounting for over 70%.

The overall business environment is better. The 6.0 version reform plan for optimizing the business environment in Beijing has been released. Through 237 reform tasks, greater efforts have been made to promote the reform of key areas from "quantitative change" to "qualitative change", further boosting corporate confidence.

Zhang Geping introduced that in recent years, Beijing Customs has always adhered to assisting in the "five sub" linkage service and integrating into the new development pattern. It has implemented the "four advantages, four improvements, and five sub" service project for two consecutive years, and has introduced a total of 54 measures to continuously promote the stability and quality of the capital's foreign trade from four aspects.

One is to optimize the platform and improve efficiency through reform. Beijing Customs regards the construction of the "two zones" as the main focus, fully promoting policy innovation and pioneering efforts. Support the Tianzhu Comprehensive Bonded Zone in building a service trade characteristic zone and an airport bonded benchmark zone, and promote the establishment of a district port integrated innovative regulatory model of "one system, one tally, one inspection, and one departure" in the Daxing Airport Comprehensive Bonded Zone. Fully promote the application for the construction of Zhongguancun Comprehensive Bonded Zone, and create a benchmark and model room for R&D type comprehensive protected zones.

The second is the optimization channel, which improves the speed of customs clearance. In order to serve the "Rebuilding the National Gate" plan of Beijing, Beijing Customs continues to assist in the smooth flow of air, sea, postal, and cross-border e-commerce logistics channels, actively promoting the construction of the leading "dual hub" air freight new model in China, continuously promoting reforms such as "early declaration, two-step declaration", "ship side direct delivery, and arrival direct loading", and promoting the full chain of supervision, data integration, and customs clearance acceleration. According to customs data, in the first quarter of this year, the overall clearance time for imports and exports in the Beijing customs area decreased by 76.4% and 92.5% respectively compared to 2017, both reaching historical best levels.

The third is to optimize the environment and improve service quality. Beijing Customs has carried out a special action on cross-border trade facilitation for 5 consecutive years, high-quality promotion of the 6.0 version reform plan for optimizing the business environment, and taking the sense of acquisition and satisfaction of enterprises as important indicators to measure the business environment of ports. We will continue to carry out a series of actions such as "customs officers delivering policies to doorstep" and "customs policies entering thousands of households", strengthen the principle that "everyone is a business environment, and everyone is a beneficial assistant to enterprises", and help enterprises make full use of various preferential policies. Since 2022, the service has covered more than 16000 enterprises, answered questions and solved more than 40000 problems, and provided tax exemptions and guarantees for enterprises exceeding 86.53 billion yuan.

The fourth is to optimize industries and enhance advantages through policies. Targeting high-end, intelligent, and green directions, focusing on advantageous and characteristic industries, and continuously assisting in the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure. For example, it has provided a "white list" system for the import of research and development goods for the pharmaceutical and health industry, and created a "core" customs supervision model for the integrated circuit industry that integrates "convenient approval of tax reduction, import customs clearance, distribution and reporting, tax payment summary and taxation, full-time and comprehensive territorial inspection, intelligent supervision of audit, and full process guidance for AEO certification".

Next, we will continue to uphold the concept of customs for the people, conduct in-depth investigation and research, go out of the office, enter enterprises, enter ports, and enter the frontline, solve difficult problems, solve new problems, and spare no effort to promote stability and quality in foreign trade, "said Zhang Geping.