General

At present, the rapid rise of global inflation has not been effectively curbed. The interviewed experts believe that the global inflation situation has a limited impact on China's economy in general, but its impact on foreign trade is increasingly apparent. People in Europe and the United States have to pay higher living costs for this. While accelerating the adjustment of demand structure, inflation has also brought a significant impact on the supply side. In the face of rising prices, some overseas purchasers directly request to postpone the delivery time of finished products, and some delay the delivery time of orders. Therefore, Chinese foreign trade enterprises need to deal with more uncertainties.

Limited impact on China's economy

Recently, several economies have released inflation data for July, and the rapid growth of inflation has not been curbed in general. The French National Institute of Statistics and Economics said on August 12 that France's inflation rate in July was 6.1%, the highest level since 1985. According to the data released by the German Federal Bureau of Statistics, although the inflation rate in Germany fell slightly to 7.5% in July, it is still at a high level and has exceeded 7% for five consecutive months. UK inflation hit a 40-year high in June, and the market expects that it will continue to maintain at a relatively high level in July. According to the data released by the US Department of Labor recently, the price of groceries in the United States has remained high and is accelerating in the past 12 months, among which the price of household food has recorded the largest increase since March 1979.

Globally, according to customs data, there are more than 40 economies with a year-on-year increase in the consumer price index (CPI) of more than 10%, and more than 80 economies with a year-on-year increase of more than 5%.

Wang Jianhui, a senior industrial economic researcher, said in an interview with the reporter of the International Business Daily that the causes of inflation are comprehensive, mainly because some foreign economies have adopted monetary easing policies for a long time, especially the flooding of US dollar liquidity, and the stimulating effect of rising energy and food prices caused by the Russian-Uzbekistan conflict on prices has quickly emerged. At the same time, with the gradual economic recovery of some economies, the market demand is further released, but the supply chain of the global industrial chain is not smooth, resulting in the relative shortage of supply and demand imbalance, exacerbating global inflation.

Wang Jianhui said that, on the whole, the impact of the price of imported goods on China is relatively limited, because the proportion of imported goods in CPI is small, and China's current inflation rate is low. However, if foreign inflation continues to increase, it will continue to drive the prices of some bulk commodities and raw materials to rise, and the imported inflation pressure will increase, which may bring some cost pressure to enterprise production.

According to customs data, in the first seven months of 2022, China's imports of crude oil, coal, natural gas and soybeans increased at a reduced price. Customs data showed that the import of crude oil was 290 million tons, down 4%; The average import price was 4736.1 yuan per ton, up 58.3%.

Fu Linghui, spokesman of the National Bureau of Statistics, said that China's CPI growth was significantly lower than that of European and American countries. In the face of international imported inflation risks, China increased its efforts to maintain supply and price stability in the domestic market, which is conducive to the overall stability of CPI. In July, the CPI rose 2.7% year on year. Although the increase was 0.2 percentage points higher than that in June, it still operated in a reasonable range. From the perspective of PPI, in July, 35 of the 40 industrial sectors surveyed by the National Bureau of Statistics rose in price year-on-year, down 2 from June.

Enterprises should enhance their international competitiveness

Foreign trade connects domestic production and foreign markets, and changes in foreign demand have a direct impact on foreign trade. What impact will the rising inflation in foreign economies have on China's foreign trade?

Wang Jianhui said that in terms of imports, the sustained inflation will restrain the import demand, but it will also drive the improvement of enterprises' expectations for the import of bulk commodities, especially the essential and high consumption commodities such as crude oil, and enterprises will place purchase orders in advance, leading to the early release of the import demand for related products and raw materials. In terms of exports, inflation will continue to have an impact on orders.

Zhao Ping, vice president of the Research Institute of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said that with the increase of inflation pressure in foreign countries, the adjustment of demand structure will accelerate, and the international competition will also intensify. In this regard, foreign trade enterprises need to strengthen the research and judgment of the market and make early layout.

Wang Jianhui further analyzed and believed that due to the higher inflation level in Europe and the United States, the demand for goods with higher cost performance will increase, especially for rigid demand goods, fast moving consumer goods, medium and low-end durable consumer goods, so the orders in these fields will increase, which will theoretically have a greater driving effect on exports, support the recent development of foreign trade, and become one of the reasons why China's exports continue to maintain a rapid growth trend.

This analysis can be supported by data. According to customs data, China's export of goods trade in the first seven months of 2022 reached 13.37 trillion yuan, up 14.7% year on year; Customs data showed that the import was 10.23 trillion yuan, up 5.3% year on year.

"But it is worth noting that the main driving factor of this inflation is not the strong recovery of the economy, so the growth of actual demand is relatively limited." Wang Jianhui said that foreign trade enterprises need to actively promote the adjustment and upgrading of the product structure, not be confused by the short-term demand rise. Conditional enterprises should better improve the global supply chain network layout, and by exploring diversified markets and strengthening logistics and transportation cooperation Achieve stable growth with the highest efficiency and improve market competitiveness.