General

The global economy faces many challenges in the first eight months of 2022. The latest edition of the "Commodity Barometer" released by the World Trade Organization (WTO) recently shows that global trade growth has stagnated. The index showed global trade growth in the second quarter was lower than in the first quarter, and is likely to remain weak in the second half of the year. Under this circumstance, the performance of major players in global trade attracts more attention, and even determines the development trend of global trade to a certain extent. From the analysis of China's foreign trade data, it is not difficult to see that despite the complex external environment, China's foreign trade has provided strong support for the construction of a new development pattern in terms of total volume, trade structure and trading partners.

According to data released by the General Administration of Customs, in the first eight months of this year, China's total import and export value was 27.3 trillion yuan, an increase of 10.1% over the same period last year. Among them, exports were 15.48 trillion yuan, an increase of 14.2%; imports were 11.82 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.2%. Looking back ten years ago, in 2012, China's total import and export value was about 24.57 trillion yuan, of which exports were 12.85 trillion yuan and imports were 11.72 trillion yuan. The total import and export volume, export volume and import volume completed in the first eight months of this year all exceeded the 2012 annual data, accounting for 111.1%, 120.5% and 100.9% of the 2012 annual trade volume respectively. The continuous expansion of trade volume reflects that China is more closely connected with the global market, and the scale of cross-border commodity flows has increased, providing an important channel and guarantee for the mutual promotion of domestic and international dual circulation.

The import and export of general trade continued to grow by double digits in the first 8 months, and the proportion of China's foreign international trade continued to increase, highlighting the impact of the continuous development of the domestic cycle on the trade structure. In the first 8 months, China's general trade imports and exports reached 17.55 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.1%, 4 percentage points faster than the growth rate of total imports and exports. The fast-growing general trade has made its share in China's total import and export value to 64.3%, an increase of 2.3 percentage points from January to August 2021. Compared with processing trade, general trade can better reflect the level and capability of a country's foreign trade. Under the condition of relatively stable trade in agricultural products, with the enhancement of manufacturing capacity, the comparative advantage of manufactured products in the international market will be expanded through general trade, and vice versa. Enterprises in all countries are striving to improve the international competitiveness of their products. Except for a few economies that build tariff barriers with trade protectionism, most enterprises seek their own development through reasonable competition in the international trade market.

The increase in the scale and proportion of China's general trade reflects the improvement in the quality of China's foreign trade and the enhancement of its independent development capability. Corresponding to it is processing trade. As processing trade, which once accounted for half of China's foreign trade, its proportion dropped to 20.1% in the first 8 months, but still 5.48 trillion yuan, a 3.5% increase. If the processing trade volume in the first eight months is proportional to the whole year, the scale of 8.2 trillion yuan is basically the same as the annual processing trade volume in 2012 (8.4 trillion yuan). This shows that China's position in global trade has remained stable for a long time even when the United States and Europe and other countries vigorously promote the return of manufacturing, and developing countries and emerging economies continue to promote development and enhance processing trade capabilities, which is also a sign of new development. The construction of the pattern has created favorable conditions. Under the current situation of the rise of trade protectionism in the global economy, the setback of industrial and supply chains, high inflation and unstable expectations, companies from all over the world still have strong confidence in China's economy and industry, and are willing to use China as a processing base to meet the needs of global production. Manufactured goods in demand by the market.

The geographical structure of international trade is a comprehensive reflection of various countries’ comparative advantages and trade environment. The trade relationship between major trading partners has a decisive impact on the international trade situation. In the first eight months, ASEAN was still China's largest trading partner, accounting for 15% of China's total foreign trade, and its growth rate was 3.9 percentage points faster than China's overall foreign trade growth. The growth rate of trade between China and the EU, the second largest trading partner, was 2.6 percentage points faster than China's overall foreign trade. China-US and China-Korea trade, which ranked third and fourth, were at the same speed and 2.3 percentage points slower than China's foreign trade, respectively. The difference in trade growth among the top four is likely to further widen the gap in trade value between major trading partners.

Since the beginning of this year, the entry into force of RCEP has created favorable conditions for the recovery and strengthening of the industrial chain and supply chain network in the region, and has also become an important external development focus of the new development pattern. China's measures to maintain continuous opening up and the attractiveness of its huge and expanding market are prompting the international circulation to revolve more around China, and trade has also enabled multinational companies to seek a compliant and reasonable model of cross-border network development, and make full use of the resources of various countries to create In order to reduce the negative impact of insufficient resource supply guarantees and fluctuations in the international trade market.