How was China's economic performance in the first half of the year? What are the new changes and features? Authoritative Analysis Comes to China | Export | Economy

Half of 2023 has passed, and various departments have recently released economic data for the first half of the year. How did China's economy perform in the first half of the year? What are the new changes and features? The reporter interviewed several authoritative experts from high-end think tanks and chief economists from research institutions to listen to their analysis and interpretation of the economic situation in the first half of the year.

Let's focus on foreign trade first. The latest data shows that in the first half of this year, China's total import and export value of goods trade was 20.1 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.1%.

From the data, compared with the same period last year, China's foreign trade growth rate significantly slowed down in the first half of the year. So, how do we view the 2.1% growth rate and the contribution of China's foreign trade to global trade?

Faced with concerns from the outside world about the slowdown in China's foreign trade growth rate, Liang Ming, Director of the Institute of Foreign Trade at the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, believes that although the year-on-year trend appears to have slowed down a bit, the month on month trend is steadily moving forward step by step. The slowdown in trade is a common challenge faced by various economies, and the difficulties are more global. In the first half of the year, against the backdrop of a significant slowdown in international demand, China's import and export scale both reached historical highs, and its position as the world's largest country in goods trade is becoming increasingly stable.

Liang Ming, Director of the Institute of Foreign Trade at the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce: China remains a stabilizer of global trade. Based on the data we monitored in the first five months, for example, Japan's exports decreased by 6.4% year-on-year; Like South Korea, its exports have decreased by 13.4%. China's foreign trade has achieved positive growth, and its contribution to the growth of world trade has also been further enhanced.

In the first half of the year, China's foreign trade not only stabilized its scale, but also experienced some positive changes. The rapid growth of new trade formats, models, and products has become the backbone driving China's foreign trade growth. New products represented by electric passenger vehicles, lithium batteries, solar cells, and the "New Three Types" continue to maintain high-speed growth.

Liang Ming, Director of the Foreign Trade Research Institute of the International Trade and Economic Cooperation Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce: We have monitored that the international market share of our exported pure electric vehicles has reached about 20%, so there is still a lot of room for growth in the next step.

Wang Wen, Chief Economist of China Export Credit Insurance Company: From the perspective of key industries and regional development, exports of new energy, complete vehicles, new formats, and service trade have all performed very strongly year-on-year.

Multiple indicators indicate that China's foreign trade vitality will further enhance

Currently, the direct impact of weakened external demand on China's foreign trade is still ongoing. So, what is the trend of China's foreign trade in the second half of the year? From multiple leading indicators in the foreign trade market, can China's foreign trade continue to maintain stable growth in the second half of the year?

As the only policy insurance institution in China, China Export Credit Insurance Company is an important force in safeguarding China's foreign trade exports. The business data of enterprises is closely related to the market. From the first half of the year, when foreign trade enterprises applied for foreign buyer quotas, which is an indicator of their intention to purchase insurance, the development vitality of foreign trade enterprises is continuously being released.

Wang Wen, Chief Economist of China Export Credit Insurance Corporation: From January to June this year, the number of limit applications received by China Export Credit Insurance Corporation increased by 9.5% year-on-year, and the amount of applications increased by 14.8% year-on-year. These two indicators are leading indicators of changes in the export situation. The increase in the number of limit applications reflects the increasing willingness of enterprises to expand overseas markets, and also indicates that the number of overseas orders and export business volume of enterprises are increasing.

In addition, China's export price index has been consistently higher than the import price index for the same period since 2022. In May of this year, the export and import price indexes were 105.3 and 95, respectively, with a difference of more than 10 percentage points, which is the highest level since 2016.

Li Chao, Chief Economist of Zhejiang Securities: This reflects the competitiveness of our entire product in terms of cost-effectiveness. We are the only country in the world with the most complete industrial categories, and in this context, our overall competitiveness in the manufacturing industry is constantly strengthening.

From the perspective of market entities, in the first half of the year, there were 540000 foreign trade enterprises in China with import and export performance, an increase of 6.9% year-on-year. Among them, private enterprises continue to expand, with a year-on-year increase of 8.3%, continuing to maintain their position as the largest operating entity in China's foreign trade.

Liang Ming, Director of the Institute of Foreign Trade at the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce: The growth rate of imports and exports of private enterprises is significantly better than the overall growth rate of our foreign trade. The proportion of the total import and export volume of private enterprises in China's foreign trade has always been more than half, which not only plays the role of a stabilizer in foreign trade, but also an important feature of optimizing China's foreign trade structure.

China remains an important force in stabilizing the global industrial and supply chains

Recently, with changes in the internal and external trade environment, there has been a phenomenon of order outflow and industry relocation in some domestic industries. Faced with such concerns, industry experts say that the scale of these order outflows is controllable and the impact is limited.

Experts say that the relocation of some industries conforms to economic laws. China has ranked first in the global export market share for 14 consecutive years. With the continuous upgrading of domestic industries, the factor structure is undergoing changes. Some enterprises have taken the initiative to expand globally, transferring some of their manufacturing links overseas. This is a normal phenomenon of trade and investment division of labor cooperation

Liang Ming, Director of the Institute of Foreign Trade at the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce: Based on the current situation we are tracking, some Chinese foreign trade enterprises mainly transfer their processing and assembly processes to other countries. Overall, the transfer of our foreign trade enterprise's industrial chain to the outside world is still rare.

Experts say that even if a few industries experience relocation or order outflow, the impact on China's exports is not significant.

Li Chao, Chief Economist of Zhejiang Securities: Its industrial chain is actually not complete, so even if the new production capacity is laid out in that area, it still drives China's exports. Let me give a relatively simple example, for example, when producing a swivel chair, there may be an axle underneath the swivel chair. The assembly of this swivel chair may have been in Vietnam or Mexico, but the axle still needs to be imported from China.

According to the latest international data released by the World Trade Organization, China's export products have achieved a slight increase in international market share in the first four months, and China remains an important force in stabilizing the global industrial and supply chains.