General

In the first three quarters of this year, China's international trade import and export totaled 31.11 trillion yuan, up 9.9% over the same period last year. Facing the complex and severe domestic and international situation and the impact of multiple unexpected factors, China's foreign trade has once again demonstrated strong resilience and vitality. In the near future, the implementation effect of various package policies to stabilize the economy has gradually emerged, which will further promote the stable growth of foreign trade.

The policy of stabilizing foreign trade has achieved good results

Since this year, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have made timely arrangements to create good conditions for the goal of maintaining stability and improving quality in foreign trade. A series of policies and measures to stabilize the economy and foreign trade have achieved good results. The steady growth of foreign trade in the first three quarters has also made positive contributions to the sustainable and stable development of China's macro-economy.

Data shows that the net exports of goods and services contributed 32% to economic growth in the first three quarters, driving GDP growth by 1 percentage point. Ni Yueju, a researcher at the Institute of World Economy and Politics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that such achievements in foreign trade are mainly due to high-quality development and high-level opening up.

The growth of global trade in goods slowed down in the second quarter of this year due to geopolitical conflicts, the COVID-19 and the high inflation in major Western countries. "Although China's foreign trade has been affected to some extent, it still maintains a stable growth trend in general, showing strong resilience." Zhu Caihua, professor of the Institute of International Economics at the University of International Business and Economics, said.

The high-quality development of foreign trade has achieved remarkable results, and the competitiveness of high value-added and high-tech products has been emerging. In the first three quarters, the export of mechanical and electrical products reached 10.04 trillion yuan, up 10%, accounting for 56.8% of the total export value. "The export of automobiles has risen suddenly, with a growth rate of 67.1%, and the export of new energy automobiles has doubled." Ni Yueju said that the automobile industry is an intermediate industry to promote the development of high-tech in the world, and automobile products are a platform to carry and use various high-tech. "The rapid growth of automobile exports shows that the overall international competitiveness of China's manufacturing industry has been enhanced."

At the same time, the high-level policy of opening up has achieved remarkable results. ASEAN continued to become China's largest trading partner. The total trade value between China and ASEAN in the first three quarters was 4.7 trillion yuan, an increase of 15.2%. "China has strong resilience in the supply chain of the industrial chain, especially the high-quality implementation of RCEP has enhanced the stability of the regional industrial chain supply chain." Zhu Caihua said. In addition, the proportion of trade between China and countries along the "the Belt and Road" has risen to 32.3% in the first three quarters, and the diversified development of international trade market has achieved positive results. "This is also the key factor to support the stable development of foreign trade in the future." Ni Yueju said.

Cross border e-commerce still has potential

Cross border e-commerce and other new business forms and models are a powerful force in the development of foreign trade and an important trend in the development of international trade.

Since this year, new forms and models of foreign trade such as cross-border e-commerce have grown steadily. In the first three quarters, Zhejiang enterprises exported 79.3 billion yuan through the customs cross-border e-commerce management platform, an increase of 1.5 times; Jiangxi enterprises' import and export through the customs cross-border e-commerce management platform increased by 2.4 times year-on-year; On the basis of breaking through 300 billion yuan in the total import and export volume of cross-border e-commerce in Guangdong, the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone has been fully covered in the province, ranking first in the country.

In the first three quarters, the total export volume of Jiangxi Haitao Cross border E-commerce Industrial Park in Jiangxi Jiujiang Economic Development Zone has exceeded that of last year. Zhu Cheng, chairman of Jiangxi Bichuang Cross border E-Commerce Co., Ltd., said that cross-border e-commerce is ushering in unprecedented development opportunities. In addition to the rapid growth of mature consumer markets in Europe and the United States, Southeast Asia, South America, the Middle East and other markets are growing rapidly. "In particular, the effective implementation of RCEP has brought new momentum to the development of cross-border e-commerce".

"Cross border e-commerce is not only a new business model for foreign trade development, but also a new driving force for stabilizing foreign trade. After more than 10 years of development, there is still potential to be tapped in the future." Zhu Caihua said. At the international level, cooperation with relevant countries in the field of e-commerce should be strengthened. At present, China has signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation on the "Digital Silk Road" with 16 countries, and established a bilateral cooperation mechanism on "Silk Road E-commerce" with 24 countries. Positive progress has been made in the construction of e-commerce cooperation dialogue mechanisms between China, Central and Eastern European countries, and China and five Central Asian countries. At the national level, we should continue to promote customs, taxation, finance and other departments to deepen the reform of the system and mechanism, innovate the regulatory model, and provide more reform dividends for the development of cross-border e-commerce facilitation. At the enterprise level, it is necessary to actively use new technologies and invest in new models, especially to increase the investment in "overseas warehouses" and accelerate the digital transformation of enterprises.

At present, the slowdown of foreign demand growth has become the biggest uncertainty facing the development of foreign trade. Ni Yueju said that if cross-border e-commerce enterprises want to gain a foothold in the increasingly competitive international market, they must "deeply cultivate" their brands and channels. Brand power has become the core competitiveness of cross-border e-commerce sellers in the future, and brand is based on high-quality products. Therefore, higher quality and more integrity are the magic weapon for cross-border e-commerce to win.

It is understood that in order to give better play to the potential of cross-border e-commerce, the 132nd Canton Fair continued to carry out synchronous activities with 132 cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot areas and 5 cross-border e-commerce platforms, and provided freight forwarding, finance, credit insurance and other services online. "We will continue to guide various cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones, cultivate a number of key enterprises and well-known brands, and fully tap the advantages and potential of cross-border e-commerce." Wang Shouwen, the representative and vice minister of the Ministry of Commerce for international trade negotiations, said.

Enhance efficiency to deal with uncertainty

At present, the uncertainty of foreign trade is increasing, and the pressure to maintain a stable growth of international trade imports and exports is increasing. It is still necessary to further enhance efficiency through policy measures to stabilize foreign trade growth.

"It is necessary to ensure that the policies that have been issued to stabilize foreign trade are implemented and effective as soon as possible, support foreign trade enterprises to ensure production and performance, unblock the channels for foreign trade enterprises to grasp orders, and cultivate new business forms, new models and new growth points of foreign trade." Liu Jianying, associate researcher of the Institute of Foreign Trade of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, said.

Keeping the main body of foreign trade market is one of the most urgent tasks to stabilize foreign trade. Ni Yueju said: "It is necessary to take orders as the main point of protection and help foreign trade enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, overcome difficulties."

The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to promote the optimization and upgrading of trade in goods, innovate the development mechanism of trade in services, develop digital trade, and accelerate the construction of a trade power. Zhao Ping, Vice President of the Research Institute of CCPIT, believes that to speed up the construction of a trade power, we should continue to make efforts from three aspects: first, the international competitiveness of trade objects is stronger; Second, the development of trade subjects is more resilient; Third, trade rules have a stronger international voice.

Experts said that in recent years, China's international trade import and export structure has changed from labor-intensive products to high-tech value-added products. In the future, under the strategy of innovation driven development, we will continue to enhance our capacity for independent innovation, shape new drivers and advantages for foreign trade development, optimize the structure of trade in goods, improve the level of trade digitalization, promote the integration of domestic and foreign trade, and promote the coordinated development of trade in goods and services. At the same time, by promoting high-level opening up, we will steadily expand the institutional opening up of rules, regulations, management, standards, etc., to create more opportunities for enterprises around the world.