General

On April 13th, the State Council Information Office held a press conference, and Lv Daliang, spokesperson for the General Administration of Customs and Director of the Statistics and Analysis Department, introduced that in the past five years, with the promotion of the construction of Hainan Free Trade Port, Hainan's foreign trade development has also entered a "fast lane".

One is the strong growth of foreign trade, with a continuous record high in scale. Customs data shows that over the past five years, the average annual growth rate of Hainan's foreign trade imports and exports has reached 23.4%, and the annual import and export value has continuously exceeded 100 billion yuan and 200 billion yuan. According to customs data, in the first quarter of this year, Hainan's foreign trade steadily improved, with an import and export volume of 57.74 billion yuan, a new historical high for the same period, with a year-on-year increase of 32.5%.

Secondly, the number of foreign trade operators has doubled and their vitality has been demonstrated. Customs data shows that over the past five years, the number of import and export enterprises in Hainan has increased from nearly 600 in 2018 to over 1500 in 2022. According to customs data, private enterprises have become the main force in the growth of Hainan's foreign trade, accounting for nearly 20% of Hainan's foreign trade in 2018 to nearly 50% in 2022. In the first quarter of this year, the proportion has further increased to 54.9%.

Thirdly, foreign trade partners are becoming more diverse and have closer exchanges. Customs data shows that in the past five years, Hainan's economic and trade ties with various global economies have further expanded, and the number of trading partners has increased from nearly 160 countries and regions in 2018 to nearly 180 in 2022. The average annual growth rate of Hainan's imports and exports to major trading partners such as the European Union, Japan, and Brazil exceeded the overall growth rate of Hainan's foreign trade by 17.6, 5.9, and 33.2 percentage points, respectively. In the first quarter of this year, Hainan's imports and exports to the three aforementioned regions continued to maintain double-digit growth.

Lv Daliang introduced that the next step is for the General Administration of Customs to focus on the "closure operation" of the entire island in 2025, in accordance with the requirements of free trade being "relaxed", various risks being "managed", security projects being "built" well, credit and other systems being "established", and the pressure of closure being "tested" accurately, reverse the construction period and carry out wall chart operations, and further do the following work: first, accelerate the implementation of pressure testing, Vigorously promote the pilot expansion of the import and export policy system of "first line liberalization and second line regulation". Secondly, we will accelerate the construction of a smart customs supervision platform to achieve precise analysis, timely supervision, and seamless customs clearance. The third is to accelerate the introduction of the "Measures for Customs Supervision of Hainan Free Trade Port" and explore new customs supervision models.