Xinhua All Media+| Under Pressure, Moving Forward, Seeing Resilience, Multi party Efforts to Accumulate Energy - Perspective on China's Foreign Trade Import and Export Data for the First 8 Months

Affected by multiple factors, China's foreign trade is under pressure and moving forward. According to customs statistics released on the 7th, the total value of China's foreign trade imports and exports in the first eight months of this year was 27.08 trillion yuan, a slight decrease of 0.1% year-on-year. Among them, the import and export in August reached 3.59 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.5% and a month on month increase of 3.9%.

"China's foreign trade operation is generally stable," said Lv Daliang, Director of the Statistics and Analysis Department of the General Administration of Customs. From the previous eight months, imports and exports have remained basically unchanged year-on-year. Looking at August alone, the import and export scale of nearly 3.6 trillion yuan increased by 3.9% compared to July, and by 8.2% compared to the average of the same period from 2020 to 2022. This scale is the second highest point in both monthly and historical data this year.

On August 10, 2023, a cargo ship slowly docked at the Qingdao Port in Shandong Province. Shen Jizhong

Regarding the challenges faced by the development of foreign trade, Zhuang Rui, Executive Dean of the Institute of International Economics at the University of International Business and Economics, believes that in the context of sluggish global economic and trade growth, rising protectionism, and a high base of foreign trade in China, it is necessary to rationally view the fluctuations in foreign trade data.

The World Trade Organization predicts that global trade in goods will grow by 1.7% this year, significantly lower than the average of 2.6% in the past 12 years. Lv Daliang stated that the slowdown in trade is a common challenge faced by various economies. Compared with neighboring economies that have already released data, China's foreign trade still shows strong resilience and its competitive advantage is stable and strengthened.

When it comes to the factors that affect the "carriage" of foreign trade, Zhuang Rui said that on the one hand, the combination of many external unfavorable factors such as the decline in consumer willingness of residents in developed economies has hindered the high-speed growth of China's foreign trade; On the other hand, as China moves from a trading powerhouse to a trading powerhouse, the development of foreign trade has gradually shifted from quantity growth to quality improvement. "It is normal for the speed of the 'carriage' to fluctuate and adjust appropriately. In the journey towards high-quality development, China's foreign trade enterprises are also accumulating momentum to promote the new pattern of 'dual circulation' development."

Solar cells, PVC materials, ships and other products are accelerating their "going out", while mineral products, edible oil, wheat and other products are constantly "entering"... Recently, reporters have conducted research in various regions and found that although China's foreign trade has faced significant external challenges since the beginning of this year, the effects of a new round of stable foreign trade policies and measures in various regions and departments continue to emerge.

——Vigorous growth. In the first eight months of this year, there were 580000 foreign trade entities in China with actual import and export performance, of which more than 80% were mainly small and medium-sized enterprises and dynamic private enterprises, with a total import and export of 14.33 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6%. The scale accounted for 52.9% of China's total import and export value, an increase of 3 percentage points from the same period last year.

On July 11, 2023, a batch of new energy vehicles will be exported through dedicated frame transportation at the Taicang Port International Container Terminal in Jiangsu Province. Shen Jizhong

——Better structure. The technology intensive and high value-added industries represented by electromechanical products have abundant momentum. In the first 8 months, China's export of mechanical and electrical products reached 8.97 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.6%, accounting for 58% of the total export value. Among them, the exports of automobiles and spare parts, ships, and electrical equipment increased by 50.1%, 28%, and 18.6% respectively, and the international market share remained stable.

——The market is diverse. With the growing number of trade partners, China's total imports and exports to countries along the "the Belt and Road" increased by 3.6% year on year in the first eight months, accounting for 46.6% of the total import and export value, boosting China's foreign trade by 1.6 percentage points; During the same period, China's imports and exports to the five Central Asian countries amounted to 390.47 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.1%, significantly higher than the overall growth rate.

"Compared to the previous one or two months required to produce a wooden guitar, now with the company's carbon fiber integrated high CNC system, the monthly production of intelligent electric guitars can exceed 20000 units, greatly achieving cost reduction and efficiency improvement." Speaking of the changes brought about by digital innovation and intelligent upgrading, Gu Wenbin, co-founder of Enya Musical Instrument Co., Ltd. in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, deeply feels that "the more severe and complex the external situation is, the more our traditional industry needs to accelerate in technology, quality, design, sales, and other aspects, making the enterprise's foreign trade path wider and wider."

Looking ahead to the future, in order to further enhance the enthusiasm of foreign trade enterprises and promote the achievement of the goal of promoting stability and improving quality in imports and exports, more measures to help enterprises overcome difficulties are constantly being introduced: the Ministry of Commerce will continue to make efforts in facilitating cross-border business personnel exchanges, supporting domestic and foreign exhibition marketing, and improving the level of foreign trade financial services; The General Administration of Customs will further expand the "single window" function of international trade at the national and local levels, establish and improve a regular communication and exchange mechanism with enterprises, and deepen the "customs chief's doorstep policy"

In Zhuang Rui's view, the fundamental principles of China's strong economic resilience, abundant potential, and long-term improvement have not changed. China has a complete industrial and supply chain, making it a true manufacturing powerhouse with much higher organizational production capacity than other countries. "For China's foreign trade industry, there are still great development opportunities for enterprises, and we need to have firm confidence in stabilizing the scale and optimizing the structure of foreign trade."