General

A trade power means that a country has stronger foreign trade competitiveness, better quality of products and services, and has the right to price important products, formulate trade rules and dominate trade activities in the international trade system. From the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China to the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on "promoting the building of a trade power" to the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on "accelerating the building of a trade power", it shows that China has always attached great importance to the building of a trade power, and has constantly introduced relevant detailed policies to accelerate the pace of China's march from a trade power to a trade power.

In this context, promoting the international trade industry to gradually climb to the high-end of the value chain, and improving the added value of exports has become the key to building a trade power.

From the perspective of trade scale and trade growth rate, China's position as a major trading country has become increasingly solid. From 2013 to 2021, China's accumulated total import and export of goods trade reached 262.3 trillion yuan, with an average annual growth of 5.4%, including 144.7 trillion yuan of export, with an average annual growth of 5.9%. In terms of US dollars, China's total international trade will rise from 4.4 trillion US dollars in 2012 to 5.3 trillion US dollars in 2020, becoming the world's largest trading country. In 2021, China's total foreign trade will increase to 6.9 trillion US dollars, continuing to be the world's largest. With the continuous expansion of the base of total foreign trade, China's foreign trade growth may also be similar to GDP growth, ushering in an era of medium to high growth. Because of this, to a certain extent, China's foreign trade has ushered in an era that not only depends on the total volume and growth rate of foreign trade, but also on the added value.

From the perspective of the external environment, improving the added value of international trade exports has become the key to supplement, stabilize and strengthen the chain. In recent years, the great changes that have not occurred in the world in a hundred years have accelerated the evolution, and the world political and economic pattern is facing uncertainty and instability. At the same time, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial reform is setting off a new wave. New technologies, new formats and new models emerge in endlessly. All countries want to enhance their voice. All these have accelerated the reconstruction process of global industrial chain, supply chain and value chain. In the face of a series of challenges, only on the basis of constantly improving the level of trade facilitation, optimizing the domestic and international market layout and trade structure, accelerating innovation drive, and improving the added value of export products and services, can we better integrate into the global industrial chain, supply chain, and value chain. That is to say, the foundation of strong trade is strong international competitiveness of industries.

From the perspective of comparative advantage, it is timely for China to devote itself to increasing the added value of exports. From OEM in the early days of reform and opening up to self-reliance and even innovation leading position in individual industries, China's foreign trade enterprises are striving to make progress and constantly transform and upgrade. This reflects that China's comparative advantage in global competition is changing. The land resources in the eastern coastal areas are limited, and the human cost is constantly rising. New management concepts, rich human resources and dynamic innovation resources have become new advantages to drive the development of foreign trade industry. How to continuously gather these advantages and further develop these advantages has become an inevitable question for China's foreign trade development.

First, at the macro level, we should promote high-level opening up under the guidance of institutional opening. Chinese enterprises have been able to integrate into the global value chain on a large scale, thanks to China's continuous opening up, especially China's accession to the WTO, which not only makes it easier for foreign enterprises to enter the Chinese market, but also reduces the barriers to Chinese manufacturing exports. As Xing Yuqing, the author of China's Export Mystery: Decoding the "Global Value Chain", said, once an enterprise joins the global value chain, it is like entering a dynamic learning curve. The learning opportunities obtained greatly enhance the innovation and upgrading capabilities of Chinese enterprises. Institutional opening is more conducive to high-tech manufacturing and high-tech service enterprises investing in China. This will make it easier for management, talents, technology, capital and other essential resources to communicate and interact in China, further stimulate the innovation passion of enterprises of both sides, form a good innovation atmosphere, and provide a good soil for Chinese local enterprises to improve export added value.

Second, at the medium level, we should create a more competitive industrial ecology. If the industry is strong, the foreign trade will be strong, and if the industrial ecology is strong, the industry will be strong. At the moment when the wave of digital economy is coming, the competition pattern has changed, and a trend has become increasingly prominent: the era when any enterprise can achieve development and growth alone has passed, and the era of link symbiosis, cooperative competition, and open cooperation has come. Whether an enterprise can develop and grow, and whether a product can be more competitive, depends more on whether its ecosystem is more competitive. From the ecological perspective, both the government and the leader of the industrial chain can more reasonably allocate capital, management, technology, talent and other elements and resources, accelerate the process of data reality integration, promote the further implementation of intelligent manufacturing, improve brand influence, and achieve the purpose of increasing export added value.

Third, at the micro level, cultivate more specialized and new enterprises. From the perspective of foreign trade entities, in 2019, the proportion of the import and export volume of private enterprises in the total foreign trade value exceeded that of foreign-funded enterprises for the first time, becoming the largest foreign trade entity in China, and most of the private enterprises are small and medium-sized enterprises. The products and services of small and medium-sized enterprises are often in the middle link, with high technology content. Their position in the industrial chain and supply chain cannot be ignored. The experience of more than 40 years of reform and opening up tells us that private enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises are the most innovative. They are very sensitive to the market and technology and are good at seizing development opportunities. Therefore, guiding, encouraging and supporting more small and medium-sized enterprises to become specialized and special new enterprises is of great benefit to China's export value-added.

Rome was not built in a day, nor was it built into a trading power overnight. Improving the added value of our export products and services is not a static goal, but a dynamic process. This requires us to make unremitting efforts to expand opening up, create an industrial ecology, cultivate specialized and new enterprises, and focus on improving their high-precision management level, so as to gather strength to continuously climb up the value chain and lay a solid foundation for accelerating the construction of a trade power.