General

It has been less than a month since the "end" of 2022. The data released by the General Administration of Customs on the 7th shows that despite the complex and severe external environment, the import and export of foreign trade still handed over a steady answer: From January to November, the total import and export value of China's goods trade was 38.34 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.6% year on year.

Zhuang Rui, a professor of the National Institute of Opening up Studies at the University of International Business and Economics, said that in winter, multiple factors such as repeated outbreaks, increased costs and exchange rate fluctuations affected the enthusiasm and activity of some enterprises in foreign trade. In this context, China's foreign trade has maintained a rapid growth and played an important supporting role in stabilizing the macroeconomic market.

"At the macro level, the implementation of a series of policies and measures to help enterprises, such as tax cuts and fee cuts by governments at all levels, and increased foreign trade credit, has been effective; at the micro level, China's foreign trade enterprises actively cultivate their 'internal skills', and constantly enhance their anti risk ability and enhance their competitiveness by expanding the domestic market, strengthening technological innovation, optimizing internal management processes and other ways." She further analyzed that.

After sorting out this foreign trade "report card", it was found that in the first 11 months, both the main structure of trade, the international market structure and the export commodity structure showed a trend of transformation, upgrading and continuous optimization.

From the perspective of the main body of foreign trade, the number of private enterprises with import and export performance in China increased by 7.3% year on year, totaling 19.41 trillion yuan, up 13.6% year on year, accounting for 50.6% of China's total foreign trade in the same period, 2.2 percentage points higher than the same period last year, and continuing to play the role of the "main force" of foreign trade.

From the perspective of trade partners, ASEAN is still China's largest trade partner. Over the same period, China's imports and exports to ASEAN increased by 15.5% year on year, accounting for 15.4% of China's total foreign trade value. At the same time, China has closer economic and trade exchanges with countries along the "the Belt and Road". The year-on-year growth of imports and exports was 20.4%, 11.8 percentage points higher than the overall growth of national foreign trade, driving the overall growth of imports and exports by 6 percentage points.

In terms of the type of export products, the export of mechanical and electrical products and labor-intensive products has grown. Among them, the export growth of high-tech products was a highlight: the export of electric manned vehicles, lithium batteries, solar cells and other products increased by 128%, 86.6% and 74.3% respectively.

Recently, at the container terminal of Qinzhou Port in Guangxi, SAIC GM Wuling Automobile Co., Ltd. is preparing to ship a batch of new energy vehicle accessories worth 30 million yuan to Indonesia. After completing the export declaration to Qinzhou Port Customs through the "early declaration" mode, these accessories will rely on the new land and sea channel in the west to realize the seamless connection between railway and sea transportation, greatly shortening the "sailing" time.

"By the end of November, the company's overseas sales had exceeded 167000 sets this year, with a year-on-year growth of 27%, especially electric vehicles, which have become a new growth pole for our exports." Li Shuying, the general manager of SAIC GM Wuling Overseas Business and Engineering Center, told reporters, "Today, Wuling has its footprint in the global markets such as Central and South America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. The company has also established a full process vehicle production base in Indonesia, and global research and development is gradually advancing."

Zhuang Rui believes that the strong resilience of the highlights of foreign trade, on the one hand, is due to the new advantages and new momentum excavated in the process of deep cultivation of advanced manufacturing industry, which has played a solid role in promoting China's foreign trade growth; On the other hand, a large number of institutional innovations launched through major initiatives such as the "the Belt and Road Initiative", the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), and the Free Trade Pilot Zone have also injected impetus and vitality into the high-quality development of foreign trade.

Although foreign trade is generally stable and progressing, it should also be noted that in recent months, the monthly growth rate of import and export has slowed down due to weak external demand, geopolitical and other factors. In the fourth quarter, the complexity and uncertainty of the domestic and foreign environment exceeded expectations, and insufficient foreign demand became a prominent challenge. At the same time, the impact of a high base gradually emerged at the end of last year, and foreign trade imports and exports were under further pressure.

The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly proposed "accelerating the building of a trade power", deployed important measures to adhere to the opening up, and emphasized "promoting the optimization and upgrading of trade in goods", "innovating the development mechanism of trade in services", "developing digital trade", etc. The meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held on the 6th also pointed out that "we should promote high-level opening up and make greater efforts to attract and utilize foreign capital."

In response to the current pressure and challenges, the spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce, Shu Jueting, said recently that China's foreign trade development still has strong support, the foreign trade industry has a good foundation, the enterprise's ability to implement contracts and innovate has been continuously enhanced, the effect of stable foreign trade policy continues to release, the number of international flights has increased significantly, and the foreign trade operation in the fourth quarter will continue to maintain a reasonable range.

"The development trend of China's foreign trade has not changed." Zhuang Rui said that in the key window period of the year-end rush to stabilize the economy, we should fully implement the spirit of the Twentieth National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), make full use of the resources of all parties in accordance with the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, and go all out to implement a package of policies and follow-up measures to stabilize the economy, so as to ensure that China's foreign trade continues to make positive contributions to consolidating the economic recovery trend.