Since the beginning of this year, China's foreign trade import and export has started steadily and month by month, and the total import and export value in the first quarter increased by 4.8% year-on-year. However, affected by the weakening of external demand, geopolitics and other factors, China's foreign trade situation is still complex and severe, facing many difficulties and challenges, and how to increase orders and expand the market has become a hot issue of many parties.
In order to promote the stable scale and optimal structure of foreign trade, on the basis of several rounds of policy measures introduced in the previous period, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Stable Scale and Excellent Structure of Foreign Trade" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions") on April 25, introducing a new round of measures. Experts believe that the 18 specific measures proposed this time not only involve key products, but also related to market expansion and trade innovation, which are highly targeted and operational, which will help stabilize the scale of foreign trade, and on this basis, further optimize the structure of foreign trade, and promote the realization of the goal of promoting stability and quality of import and export throughout the year.
Promote the full recovery of domestic offline exhibitions
Resuming offline exhibitions is an important means to help enterprises stabilize orders. Among the "18 articles" of foreign trade, the first clearly puts forward that it is necessary to optimize the supply and procurement docking of key exhibitions and promote the full recovery of domestic offline exhibitions.
"The offline exhibition gives us more opportunities to communicate face-to-face with overseas merchants and help the company sign more orders." Chen Dehuan, manager of the development department of Zhejiang Ningbo Haozhuan Technology Co., Ltd., introduced that the company participated in the 133rd Canton Fair and gained a lot, in addition to the solid foreign trade orders during the exhibition, but also docked many intended customers to make an appointment to visit the factory, in May, the company's Ningbo production base entered a busy foreign reception month, during which more cooperation will be reached.
After 3 years, the Canton Fair fully resumed offline for the first time. As a "barometer" and "weather vane" of China's foreign trade, the Canton Fair ushered in the largest edition in history: the total exhibition area increased to 1.5 million square meters, attracting hundreds of thousands of buyers from more than 220 countries and regions to sign up for the exhibition, and 35,000 offline exhibitors... From April 15 to May 5, this "China's No. 1 Exhibition" gathered 10,000 merchants, with a cumulative passenger flow of more than 2.9 million person-times, and on-site export transactions of 21.69 billion US dollars.
The Canton Fair is a microcosm. Shu Hengting, spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce, said that since the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Commerce has timely adjusted the management requirements for foreign-related economic and technological exhibitions, actively promoted the resumption of offline exhibitions, and relevant local commerce departments have also issued support policies for the exhibition industry in accordance with local conditions. In the first quarter, a total of 540 exhibition activities were held in domestic professional exhibition halls, a year-on-year increase of 3.3 times; the total exhibition area was 10.311 million square meters, a year-on-year increase of 2.3 times. Among them, there were 286 exhibition activities with an exhibition area of more than 10,000 square meters, accounting for 53%, a year-on-year increase of 5.7 times.
In addition to domestic exhibitions, the Opinions also propose that local trade promotion agencies and business associations should further increase support for foreign trade enterprises to participate in various overseas exhibitions, strengthen organizational coordination and service guarantees, continue to cultivate overseas self-run exhibitions and expand the scale of exhibitions.
"In the first quarter, according to the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade sample survey of 10,028 Chinese enterprises participating in overseas exhibitions in 44 large industries and 646 small industries, enterprises generally reported that overseas participation in exhibitions had great gains." Wang Linjie, spokesperson of CCPIT, said that this year, CCPIT and the China Chamber of International Commerce will hold 28 overseas exhibition projects, not only for mature markets such as the United States and the European Union, but also covering emerging markets such as ASEAN, Latin America and West Africa. At the same time, on the basis of completing the approval of 519 applications for the first batch of economic and trade exhibitions abroad in 2023, the second batch of more than 400 projects is being reviewed with the Ministry of Commerce to help enterprises stabilize orders and expand the market.
Wang Shouwen, international trade negotiator and vice minister of the Ministry of Commerce, said that in addition to the extensive resumption of offline exhibitions in China, it will also improve the efficiency of APEC business travel card processing and promote the safe and orderly resumption of international passenger flights, "In addition, we also ask embassies and consulates abroad to increase support for foreign trade enterprises, and will also issue specific measures to increase trade opportunities for enterprises." ”
Stabilize and expand trade in key products
Focusing on stabilizing scale, the "18 Articles" of foreign trade highlight the creation of trade opportunities while emphasizing the stabilization and expansion of trade in key products.
Automobile exports are an important part of this. Data show that in 2022, China exported 3.111 million vehicles, surpassing Germany to become the second largest auto exporter. In the first quarter of this year, China's automobile exports continued to maintain a rapid growth momentum, with exports reaching 994,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 70.6%. Cui Dongshu, Secretary-General of the National Passenger Vehicle Market Information Association, analyzed that new energy vehicles are the core growth point of China's automobile exports.
In March this year, Yutong Bus signed an export order with Uzbekistan for 800 new energy buses. This order set a record for China's bus exports to Uzbekistan, and it is also the first large-scale introduction of new energy buses in Uzbekistan. "In recent years, Yutong has continued to deploy in global target markets, and has exported more than 86,000 buses of various types to more than 40 countries and regions such as the United Kingdom, France, Mexico, and Qatar." Huang Yunliang, director of Yutong Bus Overseas Marketing Management Office, said that Yutong will continue to increase its layout in the new energy target market this year.
In order to cultivate the advantages of automobile exports, the "Opinions" issued this time proposed that various local governments and business associations organize automobile enterprises and shipping enterprises to carry out direct customer docking, and guide automobile enterprises to sign medium- and long-term agreements with shipping enterprises. Encourage Chinese banks and their overseas institutions to innovate financial products and services under the premise of legal compliance and controllable risks, and provide financial support for automobile enterprises overseas. All localities will further support automobile enterprises to establish and improve international marketing service systems, and enhance their ability to carry out brand promotion, display sales and after-sales service overseas.
Some institutions predict that benefiting from the comparative advantages of China's automobile manufacturing and the growth of overseas alternative demand and policy support, the high prosperity of China's automobile exports will continue this year, and the annual automobile export volume is expected to increase to 4 million units.
Strengthen exports and expand imports. The "Opinions" proposed to expand the import of advanced technology and equipment. Accelerate the revision of the catalogue of technologies and products encouraged to be imported, further improve the accuracy of import discount policies, and guide enterprises to expand the import of advanced technology equipment that is in short supply at home.
"Expanding imports not only contributes to China's economy, but also makes a very important contribution to the world economy and the economic development of exporting countries." According to incomplete statistics from the World Trade Organization, China is already a major export market for more than 50 countries and regions. Wang Shouwen said that China has been the world's second largest import market for 14 consecutive years, with a total import volume of $2.7 trillion last year, accounting for nearly 11% of world imports. In the next step, China will continue to take a series of measures to expand imports and support the import of important equipment and key parts and components of advanced technology.
Optimize the environment for foreign trade development
Foreign trade is an important part of the national economy, the scale should be stabilized, and the structure should also be optimized. The "Opinions" proposed to optimize trade methods and promote the healthy and sustainable innovation and development of cross-border e-commerce.
In Tianjin, a batch of furniture products of Kaijie International Trade Co., Ltd. have been successfully exported overseas through the cross-border e-commerce B2B model. Xu Mingzhu, marketing director of the company, said: "The new trade mode of cross-border e-commerce has provided strong support for us to develop overseas markets, and the company's export volume through cross-border e-commerce trade increased more in the first quarter, reaching 7.5 million yuan. ”
As one of the earliest cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones in China, the B2B export volume of cross-border e-commerce at Tianjin Port reached 38.26 billion yuan in the first quarter, an increase of 8.4 times year-on-year. The relevant person in charge of Tianjin Customs introduced that Tianjin Customs takes the initiative to connect with traditional industries and e-commerce platforms, providing enterprises with one-stop services such as advance declaration, direct loading on arrival, priority inspection, etc., implementing "paperless" filing in overseas warehouses, and simplifying filing procedures. At present, Tianjin Customs has handled overseas warehouse filing for 30 enterprises, continuously helping overseas warehouse enterprises to "go global" and promoting the high-quality development of cross-border e-commerce B2B exports in the city.
"At present, the development trend of cross-border e-commerce in mainland China is good, helping many enterprises to establish their own brands and sales channels, reduce transaction costs, and continuously improve their comprehensive competitiveness." Wang Shouwen said that the Ministry of Commerce is ready to solidly promote the construction of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone, carry out brand training, rule and standard construction, overseas warehouse high-quality development and other work.
Closely following the excellent structure, the Opinions also propose to optimize the environment for foreign trade development, give full play to the role of the early warning system and legal service mechanism, further promote the construction of a "single window", further facilitate the handling of export tax rebates, improve the efficiency of customs clearance at ports, implement the effective free trade agreements with high quality, and compile and distribute application guidelines for key industries.
Wu Haiping, director of the Department of Comprehensive Business of the General Administration of Customs, said that in recent years, Customs has further promoted the construction of a "single window" for international trade and provided enterprises with "one-stop" customs clearance services. Greater efforts should be made to deepen the reform of "decentralization, management and service", and implement measures to facilitate the people and benefit enterprises, such as "whole-process online office and nationwide office" recorded by customs declaration units. In the first quarter of this year, 90,000 new customs enterprises were recorded, a year-on-year increase of 59.8%. At the same time, we will support more enterprises to become high-level customs certification enterprises, steadily promote the "certified operator", that is, the international mutual recognition of AEO, and promote enterprises to enjoy convenience at home and abroad.
"We will continue to grasp the implementation of policies and measures, continuously enrich, adjust and improve relevant measures in terms of further improving the level of trade facilitation, smoothing import and export logistics, optimizing the business environment at ports, reducing enterprise costs, and supporting the development of new business formats, studying and launching new customs support measures, continuing to carry out the 'customs director to send policies to the door' service, accurately helping enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency, and go all out to promote foreign trade to promote stability and quality." Wu Haiping said.
Source: People's Daily reporter Qiu Haifeng
Submissions/Suggestions: [email protected]