General

Nearly half of February, China's foreign trade is running at full speed in the spring after experiencing an extremely difficult breakout in 2022.

Before the Spring Festival, the business team of Jiangsu Huihong International Group Pharmaceutical and Health Products Import and Export Co., Ltd. traveled across the ocean to Germany to participate in the exhibition. It not only had face-to-face communication with long-lost old customers, but also visited many international organizations such as the International Red Cross, the Global Fund and the World Health Organization. It fully understood the latest situation and dynamics of the pharmaceutical industry market and mastered a lot of valuable first-hand information. The Chairman of the Group sighed: "The global political, economic and social environment has undergone profound changes in the past three years of the epidemic. At present, various uncertainties still exist. Only when we really go out and go to the front line of foreign trade business, can we effectively grasp the latest industry trends, and explore and find new opportunities in face-to-face exchanges with new and old customers."

More than 1000 kilometers away, Ye Weilun, the general manager of Guangzhou Migus Technology Development Co., Ltd., just returned from the Nuremberg International Toy Fair in early February, and kept on preparing to participate in the 2023 Beijing Sports and Outdoor Goods Exhibition, to "catch" the first wave of orders for this year's autumn and winter orders.

In 2023, China's foreign trade will face the dual challenges of weak external demand and global supply chain restructuring. At this time, confidence is more precious than gold, and the confidence and motivation of international trade enterprises largely come from continuous policy assistance. The Central Economic Work Conference proposed that "we should make greater efforts to promote the stability of foreign trade in scale and structure". The recently held national teleconference on business work also took it as one of the six major tasks of this year. Recently, when planning the economic work in 2023, the local NPC and CPPCC and their government work reports have consistently focused on stabilizing the scale and optimizing the structure of foreign trade work, striving to continue to improve the quality and promote the quality on the basis of stable growth last year.

At present, the main body of foreign trade has shown a new atmosphere. It is not difficult to predict that with the continuous release of the effectiveness of a series of policies and measures and the optimization of epidemic prevention and control policies, the development of foreign trade this year will be full of resilience, vitality and stamina.

Enterprises strive for early spring

Promote foreign trade to expand the market and stabilize the scale

"At present, the risk of the world economic recession is rising, the growth of foreign demand is significantly slowing down, and the international supply chain pattern is also accelerating the reconstruction. In 2023, the main contradiction in China's foreign trade field will change from the supply chain obstruction and the lack of contract performance ability last year to the current weakening of foreign demand and the decline of orders. This is an important change." Li Xingqian, director of the Department of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Commerce, recently made a prediction on the overall situation of foreign trade this year.

Front-line foreign trade enterprises feel deeply about this. Li Yanzhou, general manager of the operation management department of Huihong Group, said: "In the first half of this year, the major international markets were affected by high inflation, the consumption declined, and the pressure to de-stock was huge. Customers generally reduced the purchase volume, and the demand contracted significantly. At the same time, the suppression of China's economy by European and American countries has been transferred from the political level to the economic level, and the systematic industrial transfer under the reason of maintaining supply chain security has become the mainstream trend of the industry. The industrial chain of Southeast Asian countries took advantage of the opportunity to develop rapidly, with capacity, technology, and supporting energy With the increasing strength, the supply chains in Central and South America and Africa are also gradually stepping onto the international supply chain stage. Under the general situation of contraction of overall demand and transfer of orders, it is expected that the export of consumer goods such as clothing and light industry will face certain challenges in the first half of the year. "

In view of this, the Ministry of Commerce and local government departments worked together to help enterprises solve difficulties and worries. The Ministry of Commerce has made it clear that "strengthening trade promotion and close connection between supply and purchase" should be given priority and fully support foreign trade enterprises to seize orders and expand markets. At present, international trade enterprises are actively supported to go to sea in groups from the country to the local level. Chinese enterprises appear at exhibitions, visit customers, and look for business opportunities. The foreign trade circle has obviously become active.

Since last October, Huihong Group has organized 33 groups, 86 business backbones, visited 21 countries and regions, visited all kinds of customers, participated in various exhibitions, and visited international organizations, and achieved remarkable results. "After three years, we met new and old friends again. We were very excited. As soon as we met, the two sides embraced each other warmly and cared about each other's recent situation. Some salesmen had sore throat and still insisted on negotiating with customers at the exhibition for four consecutive days. All of this was to seize the lost time and try to expand new business opportunities in overseas markets," Li Yanzhou said.

Ye Weilun will also participate in exhibitions, industry summits and product launches as an important means for the company to expand the market and stabilize growth this year. At the beginning of February, the company participated in the Nuremberg International Toy Exhibition, which was the first overseas exhibition of the company after three years. Ye Weilun said excitedly, "We all worked hard and got good orders. Purchasers from the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, Cyprus, Germany, Belgium and other countries came in droves and praised the company's exhibits. The market reaction was strong."

From overseas purchase orders, Ye Weilun felt that part of the market demand had shrunk. "However, the overall demand and gap were still very large. After the survival of the fittest, the truly surviving overseas enterprises have certain economic strength and external competitiveness. We also hope to carry out strong cooperation with such enterprises to further enhance international competitiveness". In addition, Ye Weilun also has an obvious feeling: overseas orders are small and scattered. At the same time, the popularity of sports toy products by the public sends a positive signal that the market is gradually warming up, which is also a good opportunity for enterprises to prepare for development. To this end, enterprises will further refine and optimize according to different customer needs.

At present, Ye Weilun is leading his team to prepare for the Spring Canton Fair held in April. This Canton Fair will resume offline exhibition in an all-round way. The company will bring new products, new designs, new styles and new functions to the market, strive to meet long-lost overseas buyers with the most adequate preparation, constantly expand sales channels and win more orders.

Powerful structure

Accelerate the high-quality development of service trade

"At the sound of the machine, ten thousand liang of gold". Entering the final assembly workshop of Rongcheng Kangpais New Energy Vehicle Co., Ltd., all kinds of painted trailer RV were lined up, hardware assembly, facility installation, RV cleaning, and the operation of all links was orderly and busy. "Our current order is two months later, and we are rushing to catch up with the export of RV." Li Longlong, the manager of the export department of the company, said that the sales situation of the company's products overseas is promising, with 110 RV exported since the Spring Festival alone. The export of RV in the first quarter is expected to achieve a new breakthrough.

In 2022, China's international trade export of mechanical and electrical products reached 13.7 trillion yuan, hitting an annual high for the sixth consecutive year, with an average growth rate of 13.4% in two years. Among them, "the 'new three kinds', represented by the export of electric vehicles, photovoltaic products and lithium batteries, reflect that China's high-tech, high-value-added products leading the green transformation have become the new growth point of export," said Li Xingqian.

Mingming, the chief economist of CITIC Securities, said that while trying to stabilize the basic market of foreign trade, this year should further improve the competitiveness of export products, optimize the structure of export commodities, increase the proportion of high-tech products and capital-intensive products, and enhance the international competitiveness of Chinese brands.

Looking ahead, the report of the 20th CPC National Congress pointed out that we should "promote the optimization and upgrading of trade in goods, innovate the development mechanism of trade in services, and develop digital trade". Li Jun, director of the International Service Trade Research Institute of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, said: "Based on the whole year, further promoting the development of service trade is an important driving force for the steady growth of foreign trade in 2023."

According to the data, the import and export of China's international trade in services increased by 12.9% year-on-year in 2022. "In the context of increasingly severe external economy, trade in services still achieved double-digit growth, and its growth rate was more than 5 percentage points higher than that of trade in goods, highlighting the stability and resilience of China's trade in services." Li Jun said that compared with trade in goods, the delivery process of trade in services is more convenient, less dependent on the external environment, and the fluctuation range is relatively small. The digital nature of service trade and the steady growth of knowledge-intensive services are the fulcrum for its growth in 2023.

It is understood that since 2016, China has implemented three rounds of pilot projects for innovative development of service trade, expanding the scope to 28 regions and achieving certain results. Since last year, the Ministry of Commerce has repeatedly proposed to "select regions with remarkable pilot results, upgrade and build a national service trade innovation and development demonstration zone" and "build a digital trade demonstration zone".

Li Jun, for example, said that, as a pilot city for the innovative development of service trade, in recent years, Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou and other places have led the country in the development of service trade, and have the basis and conditions to increase the efforts of leading the way in the innovative development of service trade; Hainan Free Trade Port has formulated the first negative list of cross-border service trade in China. In 2022, the import and export of services will exceed 35 billion yuan, of which the export of services will double year on year. "These places can strive to create national service trade innovation and development demonstration zones and digital trade demonstration zones, thus promoting the steady and qualitative growth of foreign trade."

Policy heating

Press the "Fast Forward" button for the development of new business

After the Spring Festival, the cross-border e-commerce exhibition center in Rizhao Comprehensive Bonded Zone began to be busy, and all enterprises in the park were working overtime to send orders. Ma Shihu, the operator of the center, said that since the approval of the comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zone in Rizhao last year, the import goods exhibition center in the comprehensive protection zone has entered several cross-border e-commerce operation platforms, with more than 6000 kinds of consumer goods sold as agents. "This year, we will continue to expand the categories of cross-border commodities according to market demand, increase cooperation with various e-commerce platforms, and strive to achieve a good start in cross-border e-commerce trade."

Benefiting from the two-wheel drive of policy and market, cross-border e-commerce, market procurement trade and other new forms of foreign trade will flourish in 2022, with the import and export scale exceeding 3 trillion yuan, accounting for more than 7% of foreign trade. In the face of multiple challenges to China's foreign trade this year, the relevant government departments continue to work hard on the innovation and development of foreign trade.

At the end of the year, China added 33 comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zones. So far, China's cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones have reached 165, covering 31 provinces, regions and cities. The Announcement on the Tax Policy of Export Returned Goods of Cross-border E-Commerce issued recently proposed to reduce the cost of export returned goods of cross-border e-commerce enterprises.

Zhang Zhouping, senior analyst of the B2B and Cross-border E-Commerce Department of the Research Center for Economic and Social Affairs of the Internet, said that previously, the export commodities of cross-border e-commerce were unsalable or returned, and most of them would be handled by enterprises overseas in the form of promotion or resale. After the implementation of relevant policies, enterprises with the above conditions can return more goods to China, recover the cost of returning goods for cross-border e-commerce export enterprises, stabilize their export expectations and boost confidence.

In the new year, it is the key to promote the better implementation and effectiveness of the comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zone. Li Jun said that on the one hand, each comprehensive pilot zone should actively build online platforms and offline physical park platforms with the goal of continuously improving the "two platforms and six systems"; At the same time, we will improve the construction of financial settlement system, logistics system, statistical system and other supporting safeguards, and constantly improve the industrial development level and global competitiveness of e-commerce. On the other hand, we should cultivate more cross-border e-commerce brands, deepen the overseas cross-border e-commerce market, promote the in-depth and vertical development of the industry, promote the upgrading and iteration of consumer-oriented e-commerce to industrial-oriented e-commerce, and promote the high-quality development of cross-border e-commerce.

In the planning objectives of many foreign trade enterprises this year, we can also see the importance and important deployment of developing cross-border e-commerce and digital trade.

Facing the challenge of global supply chain reconstruction, Li Yanzhou said that Huihong Group increased the construction of overseas supply chain, took advantage of the overall advantages of China's supply chain to participate in the international industrial chain transfer, and established new advantages in the international supply chain reconstruction; Strengthen digital construction, from digital design, digital material management to digital chemical plant and digital logistics management, and finally integrate global upstream and downstream resources with digital supply chain to establish a new highland and moat for Chinese enterprises in the increasingly fierce international competition.

Ye Weilun said that the company began to lay out the e-commerce field a few years ago, and has been deeply engaged in live broadcast e-commerce in the past two years, and has achieved good results, which is also the focus of the company's business development this year. In his view, "only by keeping pace with the pulse of the times and innovating and developing can enterprises find new ways out in the fast-changing market".