General

Foreign trade is an important driving force for economic growth. According to customs data, in the first seven months of this year, the total value of my country's foreign trade import and export was 23.6 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.4%, of which the total import and export value in July increased by 16.6% year-on-year. Specific to the key categories of foreign trade, key regions and major business formats, there are many bright spots, which are remarkable.

Taking into account the background of the global economic downturn, it is not easy to obtain outstanding foreign trade transcripts. This not only highlights the important role of China's foreign trade in promoting growth and stabilizing the economy, but also reflects the strong resilience of the Chinese economy. Foreign trade innovation and successful breakthroughs continue to consolidate the anti-risk capability and sustainable development potential of China's economy, and continuously inject "China's confidence" into the realization of high-quality development.

      Foreign trade data continues to rise "beyond expectations"

It's not hard to know what happened. Since the beginning of this year, the new crown pneumonia epidemic has continued and spread in many important cities in China, and some Western countries have accelerated the pace of de-globalization. Despite this, my country has effectively coordinated epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, and foreign trade imports and exports have overcome many adverse effects such as the tightening of the external environment and the short-term impact of the epidemic, and achieved rapid growth. This not only dispels the concerns of those who are concerned, but also explores a way to break through and innovate for other industries plagued by the epidemic.

Foreign trade continues to rise and the performance is eye-catching

At 20:00 on July 23, the "Mediterranean Ada 2" completed more than 700 container loading and unloading tasks and slowly left Tianjin Port Eurasia International Container Terminal, marking the official maiden voyage of Tianjin Port's "Mediterranean Southeast Asia Route". This is the third "Belt and Road" and RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) new route opened by Tianjin Port since July. According to customs data, in the first half of the year, Tianjin Port Group completed a container throughput of 10.511 million TEUs, a year-on-year increase of 2.1%.

Foreign trade has maintained a good momentum, and its contribution to the national economy has increased significantly. According to customs data, taking the data in the first half of the year as an example, the net export of goods trade was 2.48 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 57.5%, which effectively drove GDP growth and made positive contributions to consolidating the foundation for economic recovery and maintaining economic operation within a reasonable range; there are actual import and export performance. The number of enterprises reached 506,000, an increase of 5.5% year-on-year, and the role of stabilizing market players, stabilizing employment and ensuring people's livelihood was further exerted.

The growth of China's foreign trade is not "single joy", but a blessing to the world. In recent years, my country has looked at the world and continued to expand its high-level opening to the outside world. On the one hand, it has deepened regional economic interconnection and trade and investment cooperation. High-quality commodities from China are constantly meeting the production and living needs of people in all countries and regions, which is a vivid interpretation of China's role as a major country in expanding high-level opening up.

The superposition of multiple driving forces promotes the growth of foreign trade "exceeding expectations"

The foreign trade data continued to be red, especially the July data was widely interpreted as "exceeding expectations" by the outside world. So, what is the password for China's foreign trade to grow in adversity?

——Trade facilitation measures have been continuously implemented to see actual results. In recent years, my country has continued to promote the reform of cross-border trade facilitation and optimize the business environment. The overall customs clearance time and cost of imports and exports across the country have been significantly reduced, which undoubtedly injected a "strengthening shot" into the growth of foreign trade. At the same time, a series of measures to ensure supply and stabilize prices have ensured that energy prices such as electricity are relatively stable, and the overall growth rate of industrial product prices is low. In the context of high inflation in many overseas economies, this will help enhance the competitiveness of Chinese enterprises and commodities.

——The overseas "circle of friends" continues to expand, providing more choices for foreign trade. According to customs data, in the first seven months, ASEAN, the European Union, the United States and South Korea were my country's top four trading partners, with imports and exports of 3.53 trillion yuan, 3.23 trillion yuan, 2.93 trillion yuan and 1.39 trillion yuan, an increase of 13.2 trillion yuan respectively. %, 8.9%, 11.8% and 8.9%, all maintaining the growth momentum. Among them, ASEAN continues to be my country's largest trading partner, accounting for 15% of my country's total foreign trade.

If you don't reject the flow of people, you will be the river and the sea. Since RCEP came into effect on January 1 this year, the "circle of friends" of RCEP member countries has continued to expand, and trade dividends have continued to be released. Many foreign trade enterprises in my country have fully benefited from dividends such as preferential tariffs, simplified customs clearance, and facilitation of trade and investment brought about by the entry into force of RCEP. According to customs data, in the first seven months, my country’s imports and exports with countries along the “Belt and Road” increased by 19.8% year-on-year, and its imports and exports with other 14 RCEP member countries increased by 7.5% year-on-year. In July, my country's imports and exports to RCEP trading partners increased by 18.8% year-on-year, driving the overall import and export growth by 5.6 percentage points.

——The import and export of the important foreign trade city recovered rapidly, and the driving effect appeared. In the first seven months, the total import and export of the Yangtze River Delta region increased by 11.7% year-on-year; in July, it increased by 25.7% year-on-year, contributing more than 50% to the growth of national foreign trade.

Not only in the Yangtze River Delta region, but government departments have accelerated the resumption of work and production while accurately preventing the epidemic, providing effective assistance to enterprises in the affected industries, stabilizing the fundamentals of the macro economy, and escorting the steady growth of foreign trade. In the first seven months of this year, exports of labor-intensive products such as clothing, textiles, and plastic products increased by 15.2 percent.

——The driving role of private enterprises cannot be ignored. In the first seven months, the number of foreign trade enterprises with actual import and export performance in my country increased by 5.8% year-on-year. Among them, the import and export of private enterprises increased by 15.3%, accounting for 50% of the total value of my country's foreign trade. The diversified foreign trade pattern has achieved outstanding results.

As the largest subject of Shandong's foreign trade, private enterprises have imported and exported 1.39 trillion yuan in the first seven months, an increase of 24.8%, accounting for 73.5% of the total foreign trade import and export of Shandong Province in the same period, and the proportion has increased by 3.5 percentage points compared with the same period last year, showing that private enterprises The dynamism and stamina of the company.

The goal of improving the quality of foreign trade in the whole year can be expected

Although the growth momentum of foreign trade is improving, in the face of complex internal and external situations and uncertain factors, we cannot take it lightly. At present, the recovery of the world economy is relatively fragile, the growth of demand is slow, and the global inflationary pressure is high. The industrial chain and supply chain are not smooth, raw material costs, logistics costs, labor costs are soaring, profit margins are shrinking, and the profit level is low to a certain extent.

Although the situation is complex and severe, the fundamentals of my country's economy with strong resilience, sufficient potential and long-term improvement have not changed. Especially with the implementation of the country's previous package of policies and measures to stabilize the economy, my country's foreign trade is still expected to maintain steady growth throughout the year. The advantages of my country's complete industrial categories, complete industrial chain, strong industrial supporting capacity and high production efficiency will be further revealed, which can continue to provide strong support for the development of foreign trade.

The Ministry of Commerce pointed out that in the second half of the year, it will highlight the three focus points of expanding volume, stabilizing stock, and strengthening security, actively promoting exports and expanding imports, and measures include fully tapping the potential of cross-border e-commerce and in-depth cultivation of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones; Make good use of the signed free trade agreements to guide enterprises to accurately develop the international trade market; strengthen production and operation guarantees for foreign trade enterprises, and smooth logistics blockages in a timely manner; guide the orderly transfer to the central and western regions and northeast regions; stabilize the expectations of small, medium and micro foreign trade enterprises, and effectively Support foreign trade enterprises to reduce costs, etc.

Focusing on reducing costs and increasing efficiency, many places have taken pragmatic measures to clear obstacles for foreign trade enterprises as much as possible. For example, Zibo Customs issued 17 measures to promote the stability and improvement of foreign trade, support key industries to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and guide enterprises to make full use of the customs reduction and exemption policies. Promote a new model of tax management and reduce the time for customs clearance and declaration of goods. Actively cultivate new momentum in foreign trade, support traditional foreign trade enterprises in need to transform into cross-border e-commerce, and support the construction and development of overseas warehouses for cross-border e-commerce.

The Tianjin Municipal Taxation Bureau is actively implementing the steps to speed up the processing of export tax refund (exemption), optimize the export tax refund processing process, and shorten the tax refund time. In the first half of this year, a total of more than 4,800 export enterprises have handled export tax rebates (exemptions) of more than 12 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.5%. As of July, more than 2,000 first-class and second-class export enterprises have handled the export tax refund (exemption) business normally, and the average time has been compressed within 3 working days.

While strengthening the connection function of foreign trade platforms, running various expositions well, and opening the door wider and wider, China continues to promote the construction of a more complete global trade and investment system and maintain the role of the multilateral trading system in the facilitation and liberalization of global trade and investment. The status of the main channel, advocating the establishment of a foreign trade and foreign investment cooperation framework featuring equal consultation, joint participation and universal benefit.

More importantly, it is to consolidate its own foundation, and improve the quality and level of export products by accelerating industrial transformation and upgrading, updating iterations, and intelligent empowerment. Aiming at the needs of overseas markets, creating an "indispensable" core competitiveness, and striving to achieve what others have and what others have, so as to strive for the upper reaches and superiority in the fierce overseas market competition.