General

On the 7th, the General Administration of Customs released the "report card" of China's foreign trade in the first 10 months: the total value of international trade imports and exports was 34.62 trillion yuan, up 9.5% year on year. In cumulative terms, the growth rate of imports in RMB was the same as that in the first three quarters, while exports fell slightly. The insiders believe that under the severe and complex external environment, China's foreign trade is still resilient despite certain pressure.

Stabilizing foreign trade is of great significance to stabilizing the overall economic market. Li Kuiwen, Director of the Statistics and Analysis Department of the General Administration of Customs, said that the year-on-year growth rate of nearly 10% in the first 10 months showed that China's foreign trade had withstood the impact of multiple unexpected factors, and its scale, quality and efficiency had been improved simultaneously.

Zhang Yu, Deputy Director of the International Economic and Trade Research Office of the Institute of Financial Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that in the face of adverse effects such as international geopolitical conflicts and the COVID-19, it is not easy to maintain a stable growth of imports and exports in the first 10 months of this year, superimposed on the high level of China's international trade last year. This is inseparable from the effective implementation of a package of policies and follow-up measures to stabilize the economy, as well as the continuous optimization of China's foreign trade structure and regional layout.

——The expanding international "circle of friends" is an important reason. In the first 10 months, China maintained good economic and trade exchanges with ASEAN, the European Union, the United States and other major trading partners. Among them, the total trade value with ASEAN was 5.26 trillion yuan, an increase of 15.8%, accounting for 15.2% of China's total international trade value. ASEAN's position as China's largest trading partner was further consolidated.

It is particularly noteworthy that over the same period, China's trade with countries along the "the Belt and Road" has increased significantly: the total import and export of international trade was 11.23 trillion yuan, an increase of 20.9%, 11.4 percentage points higher than the overall growth of national foreign trade, driving the overall import and export growth of 6.1 percentage points.

——The main driving force is the strengthening of the vitality of foreign trade business entities. In the first 10 months, the import and export of private enterprises increased 14.4% year on year, accounting for 50.4% of China's total foreign trade value, 2.2 percentage points higher than the same period last year. Among them, there were 484,800 private enterprises with import and export performance, up 7.4% year on year.

Zhang Yu believes that since this year, a series of policies and measures, such as helping enterprises to rescue and protecting market entities, have been introduced to effectively stimulate the vitality of foreign trade enterprises. The development of new forms of business, such as cross-border e-commerce and market procurement trade, has also become a positive factor in the stable operation of foreign trade.

Recently, the Qingdao cross-border e-commerce industrial park in Qingdao West Coast New Area is busy, and workers are stepping up the preparation and allocation of goods.

"This year, the enterprise will stock up earlier than in previous years." Wang Zhenpeng, Chief of the Sixth Supervision Section of the Port Supervision Division of Huangdao Customs under Qingdao Customs, said, "Most of the promotion and pre-sale of the major platforms started at the end of October. According to the experience of previous years, the" Double 11 "period was the peak of e-commerce sales. We took a series of measures to deal with the sharp increase in cross-border e-commerce commodity sales."

——The competitiveness of high value-added and high-tech products is also emerging. In the first 10 months, China's export of mechanical and electrical products reached 11.25 trillion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 9.6%, accounting for 57.1% of the total export value. Among them, the export of electric manned vehicles, lithium batteries and solar cells increased by 116.2%, 87.1% and 78.6% respectively.

Li Kuiwen said that the export of electric manned vehicles doubled, and the export of electromechanical products such as lithium batteries and solar cells increased by about 80%, reflecting the upgrading and optimization of China's export structure.

At the same time, we should also note that, due to the weak external demand, the fluctuation of the RMB exchange rate and other factors, China's total import and export value fell 0.4% year-on-year in October, and the growth of foreign trade slowed down. With the weakening of the growth momentum of the world economy and global trade, some new uncertainties in the development of foreign trade have also weakened the expectations of some market players.

Looking forward to the fourth quarter, the spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce, Shu Jueting, said that there are many difficulties and challenges in stabilizing the basic foreign trade market, and there are still many favorable conditions for the stable growth of China's foreign trade. To sum up, China's foreign trade has a good industrial foundation. International trade enterprises have continuously enhanced their ability to perform and innovate, and have closer trade contacts with the global market. "We will strive to maintain the operation of foreign trade within a reasonable range, achieve the goal of maintaining stability and improving quality throughout the year, and continue to make positive contributions to the recovery of the national economy."