General

At the meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held on December 6, it was proposed to promote high-level opening up and make greater efforts to attract and utilize foreign capital.

Since this year, China's economy has faced some challenges and downward pressure due to unexpected factors such as epidemic situation and external shocks, but foreign trade has maintained a stable operation. The latest data released by the General Administration of Customs shows that in the first 11 months of this year, China's international trade imports and exports totaled 38.34 trillion yuan, up 8.6% year on year.

Experts in the industry said that after the outbreak of the epidemic, thanks to China's powerful and effective epidemic prevention and control measures, the resumption of production in China led the world. "Therefore, when the production capacity of other countries is obviously affected by the epidemic, the dependence of global industries on China has increased more than two years after the outbreak of the epidemic, and the increase of foreign demand has led to the rapid growth of foreign trade exports." Zeng Gang, director of Shanghai Finance and Development Laboratory, said.

However, it cannot be ignored that since this year, the central banks of some developed economies such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe have continued to raise interest rates. The adjustment of industrial chains and production capacity in some countries has had a certain impact on China's foreign demand, and China's foreign trade has faced greater challenges.

With the adjustment and optimization of China's epidemic prevention and control policies, many provinces and cities have organized delegations to overseas to grab orders. Local governments have actively helped international trade enterprises to expand the market, which has greatly boosted market confidence.

High quality development requires a high level of openness. Especially in the current context, stabilizing foreign trade is of great significance to stabilizing the macroeconomic market. For banking financial institutions, they should actively innovate financial services, escort foreign trade enterprises to better "go global", help foreign trade enterprises cope with the uncertainty of the external environment with high-quality financial services, and accelerate the optimization and upgrading of the international trade structure.

"At present, the demand for foreign trade financial services has become more online and more remote. Influenced by epidemic factors, many businesses of traditional cross-border financial services no longer meet the current demand of foreign trade for financial services. Therefore, timely innovation of financial services meets the new demand for foreign trade, and helps to promote the growth of international trade exports while improving the convenience of foreign trade." Pan Helin, co director and researcher of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center of the International Joint Business School of Zhejiang University, said.

Innovative business model to meet the financing needs of foreign trade enterprises

The transactions of small and micro foreign trade enterprises represented by cross-border e-commerce are small, high-frequency and electronic, and their capital needs are "short, small, frequent and urgent".

However, small and micro foreign trade enterprises are generally light in assets and small in scale, which makes it difficult to obtain financing in time.

"In recent years, China's foreign trade structure has undergone positive changes, trade in services has increased, and new forms of foreign trade have developed rapidly. Financial institutions need to innovate financial services to better serve the development of foreign trade." Lou Feipeng, researcher of Postal Savings Bank of China, said.

In order to help small and micro foreign trade enterprises such as cross-border e-commerce better "go global", CITIC Bank innovatively launched the "export e-loan" product, which provides small and micro foreign trade enterprises with full process, self-service and pure credit financing services based on customs export declaration data and credit insurance insurance scenarios by building multi-dimensional data integration, risk control model construction and process risk control.

"The biggest feature of this product is one-time credit granting, year-round recycling, and" second by second "payment, which has been recognized in terms of customer experience and operational convenience, and also allows customers to experience the convenience brought by financial technology." The relevant person in charge of CITIC Bank said.

A photoelectric technology company in Hubei is a small high-tech enterprise that develops and produces LED photoelectric series products. 60% of its products are sold to the Middle East, South Asia and other places. In 2022, the company's overseas orders will increase, but affected by the epidemic, the settlement cycle of sales funds will be extended, and the cost of raw materials, transportation costs and other costs will rise again. The enterprise has encountered a capital bottleneck.

"Without mortgage, you can get the loan from Agricultural Bank of China with export trade documents, and the interest rate is favorable." The person in charge of the enterprise said.

It turned out that Hubei Jingzhou Branch of the Agricultural Bank of China, after learning about the enterprise in the visit of the "Special Action for Enterprise Assistance and Relief", continued to provide it with export commercial invoice financing according to the fact that there were many accounts receivable under the enterprise's export commercial invoice, constantly replenished working capital, and the interest rate of USD loans was lower than that of RMB working capital loans, reducing the enterprise's financing costs.

In addition to the bill financing for exporters, Hubei Branch of the Agricultural Bank of China also comprehensively used letters of guarantee, forfaiting, export documentary bills and other products to expand the supply of foreign trade credit. At the same time, it innovated the combination of "domestic letters of credit+proprietary forfaiting" and other products to reduce enterprise financing costs.

All along, the Agricultural Bank of China has insisted on serving the country's high-level opening up as the core, deepened the implementation of the national policy and deployment of stabilizing foreign trade and foreign capital, continued to strengthen domestic and foreign linkage and regional coordinated development, provided high-quality cross-border financial services for "going out" and "introducing" enterprises, and fully supported the steady development of foreign trade enterprises.

It is understood that in the first 10 months of this year, the Agricultural Bank of China has handled 979.8 billion yuan of international trade financing (including financing under domestic securities), up 55.5% year on year.

Innovate publicity methods to guide enterprises to establish a neutral concept of exchange rate risk

For foreign trade enterprises, exchange rate fluctuations are an unavoidable topic. It is one of the important tasks of banking financial institutions to guide foreign trade enterprises to establish the concept of neutral exchange rate risk and escort them through the exchange rate fluctuation cycle.

"Betting on the appreciation or depreciation of exchange rate is not the right way to do it. Some foreign trade enterprises may not have enough understanding of this, so the banking industry needs to do a good job of publicity, promote foreign trade enterprises to better safeguard their legitimate rights and interests, and do a good job in foreign exchange risk management." Lou Feipeng said.

In order to help foreign trade enterprises avoid exchange rate risk and publicize the neutral concept of exchange rate risk, Minsheng Bank Shantou Branch has constantly innovated the publicity channels and methods, and constantly expanded the audience of the neutral concept of foreign trade enterprises' exchange rate risk through the combination of online and offline methods, such as "neutral management of exchange rate risk" publicity, sending publicity to enterprises, on-site publicity at hall outlets, WeChat official account publicity, and issuing online questionnaires, Actively help enterprises fully understand and scientifically manage exchange rate risk, and improve the business ability of foreign trade enterprises to reduce exchange risk by using derivative instruments.

In the first 11 months of this year, Minsheng Bank Shantou Branch, in combination with online forward foreign exchange settlement and sales channels and the "welfare package" of forward point difference concessions, handled a total of 105 million US dollars in foreign exchange derivatives contracts, up 37.5% year on year. The 17 foreign trade enterprises within the jurisdiction have "broken the ice" in long-term settlement and sales of foreign exchange, boosting the healthy development of foreign trade enterprises.

In recent years, enterprises' demand for exchange rate hedging has continued to increase. In order to help small and micro foreign trade enterprises avoid exchange rate risk, Bank of Communications innovatively launched the "exchange rate steward" service plan for small and micro foreign trade enterprises, formulated targeted relief measures such as delayed insurance recovery, piloted the project system in some regions, introduced government financing guarantees, continued to develop and improve the online foreign exchange financial business function of "EASY exchange", actively unblocked the pain points of small and micro foreign trade enterprises' exchange rate hedging business, and achieved good results.

In the first three quarters of this year, the number of exchange rate hedging customers of small and micro enterprises of the Bank increased by 67% year on year, and the business volume increased by 51% year on year.