August foreign trade "full blood resurrection"! In the Golden Hour of the Christmas Season, there are export enterprises that produce non-stop 24 hours a day

China Times (www.chinatimes.net.cn) reporter Zhang Zhi reported in Beijing

Autumn is getting cooler, but foreign trade enterprises are generally still in the spring.

"Since the beginning of this year, our orders have soared, in order to complete the order on time and with quality, the workshop has opened a high-speed operation mode of 24-hour continuous operation, the workshop can produce more than 10,000 products per day, and some orders even need to be processed externally." The head of a company engaged in the export business of knitted garments in Guangxi said.

Due to the large number of orders and busy production, as of the end of July, the company had delivered 3.6 million pieces, with a total value of more than 17 million US dollars, and the output increased by 25% over the same period last year.

Meng Zhuo, manager of Anhui Garment Import and Export Co., Ltd., thousands of miles away, also has the same "sweet trouble" that cannot be completed.

According to the data released by the General Administration of Customs, in August, the total value of China's imports and exports was 3.43 trillion yuan, an increase of 18.9% year-on-year, of which exports were 1.9 trillion yuan, an increase of 15.7% year-on-year, and imports were 1.53 trillion yuan, an increase of 23.1% year-on-year.

Li Chao, chief economist of Zheshang Securities, said that the export in August exceeded expectations, mainly because the lengthening of the shipping cycle led to the early shipment of overseas Christmas orders, so the Christmas order effect was reflected earlier than in previous years, supporting the August data.

According to the prediction of Wan Zhong, director of the Research Center of the General Administration of Customs, this year's trade in goods is expected to achieve double-digit growth, reaching 5.1 trillion US dollars, both last year and compared with 2019. This means that in the first year of the "14th Five-Year Plan", China is expected to complete the "14th Five-Year Plan" target of trade in goods ahead of schedule. At that time, the international market share of China's trade in goods will further increase to about 15%.

It is worth noting that such growth is not the full potential. It is understood that due to the shortage of shipping containers, some enterprises are delayed in waiting, which partially affects exports. Otherwise, exports can grow.

However, Li Kuiwen, spokesman of the General Administration of Customs, also reminded that the global epidemic situation is still evolving, the external environment is becoming more complex and severe, and China's foreign trade base is higher in the fourth quarter of last year, and it is expected that the growth rate of China's foreign trade may decline in the future.

Spring of export enterprises

This August is the final stage of the peak period for overseas Christmas season shipments, and export companies have begun to concentrate on shipping.

"Due to the tight supply of shipping, the shipping cycle of this year's export is longer than in previous years, this time is not shipped out, may not be able to order containers and can not be shipped out, once the season is over, no matter how good customers will not want these goods, and finally can only backlog." Meng Zhuo said.

Due to the delay in alleviating the tight container situation, some companies began to ship out as early as July. In August, the peak of foreign transportation officially arrived.

Gao Feng, spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, also said that June to August is the peak period for shipments of Christmas supplies, but this year, considering the risk of maritime port delays, overseas customers generally place orders in advance by online viewing and signing orders. Some orders have been shipped earlier than in previous years and delivered.

This is one of the reasons for the sharp increase in imports and exports in August this year, but export shipping is only the downstream link of exports. In the hongta securities research institute director, chief economist Li Qilin view, this import and export exceeded expectations of one reason is that the new round of the epidemic on Southeast Asia and other developing countries have a significant impact, at present, Vietnam, Malaysia and other places locked down, production has been significantly affected, in the month of August, Vietnam's exports from positive to negative, growth rate of -1.13%, the Philippine manufacturing PMI fell from 50.4 to 46.4, hitting a new low since the second quarter of 2020.

This has also led to a large number of orders flowing back to China.

According to the data released by the General Administration of Customs, in the first eight months of this year, the total value of China's imports and exports was 24.78 trillion yuan, an increase of 23.7% over the same period last year, and imports and exports continued to maintain a steady growth momentum. Among them, exports were 13.56 trillion yuan, an increase of 23.2% year-on-year; imports were 11.22 trillion yuan, an increase of 24.4% year-on-year.

"In the first 8 months, thanks to the effective control of the epidemic in China, the economy continued to recover steadily and steadily, and China's imports and exports continued to maintain double-digit year-on-year growth, even compared with the same period in 2019, it also increased by 22.8%." Li Kuiwen, director of the Statistical Analysis Department of the General Administration of Customs, said.

A bright spot is that in exports, the export of mechanical and electrical products, high-tech products, clothing, automobiles and other commodities has maintained strong growth. In the first eight months, China's mechanical and electrical products exported 7.98 trillion yuan, an increase of 23.8% year-on-year. In terms of imports, imports of major commodities such as soybeans, natural gas, integrated circuits and automobiles increased by 3.6%, 22.2%, 27.2% and 31.2% respectively year-on-year.

At the same time, China's cross-border e-commerce, market procurement trade and other emerging trade formats have also shown a vigorous momentum of development, and the structure of trade methods has been further optimized.

Pressure remained in the fourth quarter

However, in Li Chao's view, August exports exceeded expectations, which may mean that the stage of bullish cash, the early reflection of Christmas orders, may lead to a decline in follow-up sustainability and intensity, at the same time, the epidemic impact on emerging market supply brought about by the order transfer is also difficult to sustain.

"At present, the gap between supply and demand is still the reason for the export boom, and it is expected that the consumer demand for durable goods in developed economies will gradually weaken, on the one hand, the new demand for goods due to the loss of consumer demand in the service industry during the epidemic period will gradually decline with the repair of service industry consumption, on the other hand, because of the large number of financial subsidy plans in the United States, the demand for consumer goods will lead to a sustained decline in subsequent commodity consumption." Li Chao said.

At the same time, although some Southeast Asian orders were transferred to China in August, there is great uncertainty about whether this part of the orders can be retained. It is understood that this part of the order, which is dominated by labor-intensive products, is highly sensitive to costs, although it relies on Chinese supply during the epidemic, but with the slowdown of the epidemic, the overseas supply gap will show a narrowing trend as a whole.

Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao also pointed out that there are many "one-time factors" behind the strength of foreign trade this year, such as the intensification of the epidemic in the surrounding areas causing orders to return to China, the sharp increase in the export volume of epidemic prevention materials, etc. These "one-time factors" are gradually fading, and the growth rate of foreign trade since the second half of the year is gradually slowing down, "Next year's foreign trade situation may be very severe."

It is worth vigilance that although China's imports and exports have risen sharply, some orders have been backlogged in domestic warehouses due to booking difficulties or high freight rates, which has brought pressure to business operations.

"At present, China's foreign trade enterprises are generally facing the four difficulties of insufficient transportation capacity, high freight rates, rising prices of commodities and raw materials, appreciation of the RMB exchange rate, and rising labor costs." Wang Wentao pointed out.

In fact, in the second half of the year, major economic data such as consumption and real estate investment and high-frequency indicators such as the Keqiang Index began to show the characteristics of decline, and the market also began to have "recession" expectations. However, Xiong Yuan, chief macro analyst of Guosheng Securities, said that the export resilience in the second half of the year is still strong, and it is necessary to pay attention to the four major supports such as the structure of export products, the repeated epidemic situations overseas, overseas economies, and the limited space for further improvement in the capacity utilization rate of developed countries.

The market expects that the actual year-on-year GDP growth rate in the third and fourth quarters of this year will fall back to 6.1% and 5.2% respectively.