On the afternoon of the 12th, the General Administration of Customs announced the foreign trade data for the first quarter of this year. In the first quarter, the scale of the mainland's trade in goods hit a record high of more than 10 trillion yuan, and the growth rate of imports and exports hit a new high in six quarters. Judging from the latest data, who is the "strong engine" of China's foreign trade? How does the General Administration of Customs respond to the so-called "overcapacity" remarks?
The import and export of private enterprises exceeded "half of the country" and increased by 10.7%
The scale of import and export of goods trade in mainland China exceeded 10 trillion yuan for the first time in the same period in history, and the growth rate of import and export hit a new high in six quarters. Judging from the data released by the General Administration of Customs for the first quarter, the private enterprises, which have been the mainland's largest foreign trade operators for five consecutive years, have once again made brilliant achievements. In the first quarter, the import and export of private enterprises in mainland China reached 5.53 trillion yuan, an increase of 10.7 percent, accounting for 54.3 percent of the total import and export value.
Recently, a batch of photovoltaic products worth more than 60 million yuan sailed to Europe. As a leader in the global photovoltaic industry, Sichuan, a private photovoltaic company, has maintained a leading position in the industry in terms of shipments for seven consecutive years, and in the first quarter of this year, the company not only signed a purchase agreement with a South African company to help South Africa's power construction, but also released a new module product, which attracted the attention of the global market with its excellent design and technology.
Xing Guoqiang, Chief Technology Officer of Tongwei Photovoltaics: The demand for photovoltaic products in overseas markets remains hot this year, and in the first quarter of this year, our company's overseas orders signed exceeded 1GW, doubling compared with the same period last year. We have launched a new TNC-G12 series, which increases the module power to more than 700W, which is a high-power and high-efficiency product that accurately meets the urgent pursuit of economy for large-scale overseas ground power stations.
In recent years, the private economy has made remarkable achievements, and the scale of import and export has reached new highs. Not only that, private enterprises have also become a new force leading innovation and creation, and are the largest import and export body of high-tech products in the mainland, making important contributions to the acceleration of the cultivation and accumulation of new productive forces in the field of foreign trade.
Private enterprises dare to dare to fight in the development of markets, and have done business all over the world, as far as Chile in the southernmost part of the world, Norway in the northernmost part of the world, and Southeast Asian countries near the doorstep, all of which have close trade ties with mainland private enterprises.
Lv Daliang, Director of the Department of Statistics and Analysis of the General Administration of Customs: In terms of the number of business entities, almost 9 out of every 10 enterprises with import and export records are private enterprises. In terms of growth rate, the growth rate of exports and imports of private enterprises was 4.8 and 7.8 percentage points faster than the overall growth rate respectively, and the scale of imports and exports accounted for 54.3% of the total import and export value of the mainland, and the main position of stabilizing foreign trade continued to be consolidated.
Trade with the Belt and Road countries will be accelerated
From the perspective of trading partners, in the first quarter of this year, the import and export of foreign trade between the mainland and its major trading partners maintained a growth momentum, and the mainland's imports and exports to the countries jointly built on the "Belt and Road" increased by 5.5%, accounting for 47.4% of the total import and export value. The layout of the international market, with close regional cooperation and diversified development, continued to be optimized.
In the past two days, Shandong, a machinery and equipment company, is stepping up the production of intelligent sandblasting equipment that will be exported to Europe, which is the first time that the large-scale intelligent robot independently developed by the company has been exported to the "Belt and Road" countries.
Wu Chengmin, deputy general manager of Shandong Kaitai Group Co., Ltd.: Since the beginning of this year, with the help and strong support of Binzhou Customs, we have taken the initiative to go abroad, actively explore the international market, and merge and acquire 4 overseas companies one after another, realizing the output value and technology catch-up with major foreign competitors.
Customs statistics show that in the first quarter of this year, the mainland's imports and exports to the "Belt and Road" countries reached 4.82 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.5%, accounting for 47.4% of the total import and export value, an increase of 0.2 percentage points year-on-year. Among them, imports and exports to ASEAN were 1.6 trillion yuan, an increase of 6.4%. In the same period, imports and exports to the European Union, the United States, South Korea and Japan were 1.27 trillion yuan, 1.07 trillion yuan, 535.48 billion yuan and 518.2 billion yuan respectively, accounting for 33.4% in total.
From the perspective of imports, the "Chinese market" continues to bring development opportunities to other countries. Crude oil from the Middle East, natural gas from Central Asia, metal ores from South America, and various advantageous commodities of the co-construction countries are exported to the mainland.
From the perspective of exports, "Made in China" continues to provide stable supply for all countries. China has stepped up industrial cooperation with co-construction countries, and achieved double-digit growth in exports of high-tech intermediate goods such as electronic information, instrumentation and high-end equipment, providing support for the industrial development and technological progress of relevant countries.
Wang Lingjun, Deputy Director General of the General Administration of Customs: In just three months in the first quarter of this year, the General Administration of Customs signed 11 cooperation documents with the countries that jointly built the "Belt and Road", including 9 related to agricultural and food product access and 2 institutional cooperation documents.
Trade between the mainland and other BRICS countries is getting closer and closer
Among the foreign trade results of the first quarter announced on the 12th, another point worth paying attention to is the trade between the mainland and other BRICS countries. Since the BRICS summit in 2009, the import and export value of the mainland and Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa has increased from 960.21 billion yuan in 2009 to 4.32 trillion yuan in 2023, with an average annual growth rate of 11.3%. Since the beginning of this year, the BRICS cooperation mechanism has entered a new stage, with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Iran and Ethiopia becoming full members of the BRICS, and the mainland's trade with other BRICS countries has become closer.
It is now the peak export season for seed kernel agricultural products, and customs officers are conducting territorial inspections of a batch of sunflower seeds exported to Iran in this food enterprise in Bayannur City.
Nie Changcheng, Chairman of Inner Mongolia Mr. Kwai Food Co., Ltd.: Since the beginning of spring, we have successively grabbed 5,000 tons of sunflower seed orders from Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and other countries through overseas exhibitions and online promotion.
Bayannur City is the "leading goose" of "Mongolian" agricultural products going to sea, and the export volume accounts for more than 70% of the total export of agricultural products in Inner Mongolia.
Zhou Lili, a staff member of the fourth section of Urad Customs Supervision: We innovate the business model of territorial inspection, promote cross-border e-commerce export formats, cultivate public overseas warehouses of enterprises, make full use of the preferential policy of origin of the RCEP agreement, and press the "fast forward button" for the customs clearance of agricultural products. In the first quarter, Bayannur City imported and exported 2.3 billion yuan of agricultural products, including 2 billion yuan to the countries that jointly built the "Belt and Road", once again hitting a new high in the same period in history.
According to customs statistics, in the first quarter of this year, the mainland's imports and exports to the other nine BRICS countries reached 1.49 trillion yuan, an increase of 11.3 percent, accounting for 14.7 percent of the mainland's total import and export value. The cooperation between the mainland and other BRICS countries in various fields is highly complementary, and each has its own characteristics in import and export.
Lv Daliang, Director-General of the Department of Statistics and Analysis of the General Administration of Customs: The latest forecast of the International Monetary Fund shows that the volume of trade in goods and services of developing countries will grow by 4.5% in 2024, higher than the overall global growth rate of 3.3%.
Who is the "strong engine" of China's foreign trade?
Judging from the data released on the 12th, the import and export of private enterprises in the mainland increased by 10.7% in the first quarter, accounting for 54.3% of the total import and export value, half of which is worthy of the name; Imports and exports to the Belt and Road countries increased by 5.5 percent, accounting for 47.4 percent of the total import and export value; Since 2009, the import and export value of the mainland and the four BRICS countries of Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa has increased by an average of 11.3% per year.
Why have private enterprises, the Belt and Road countries, and the BRICS countries become the "strong engines" of China's foreign trade?
Shen Guobing, Deputy Director of the Institute of World Economy and Professor of the School of Economics, Fudan University: First, I think that China is actively negotiating multilateral trade and bilateral trade agreements at the policy level, which we collectively call high-standard trade agreements. I believe that these high-standard trade agreements have become a new engine for the growth of China's foreign trade, which is mainly reflected in the foreign trade of the "Belt and Road" countries and the RCEP countries that have signed agreements with us, and the export and import have increased. For example, the "Belt and Road" countries increased by 5.5%, accounting for 47.4% of our total foreign trade.
The second is that the vitality of market entities is very obvious, mainly in private enterprises. China's private enterprises are fully familiar with the global business environment, and have the advantages of relying on market acumen to capture the market, have the spirit of opening up the market and make a good U-turn. Therefore, China's private enterprises have become a strong engine to promote the growth of China's foreign trade, and the vitality of private enterprises is still rising, promoting the sustainable growth of China's foreign trade.
The third is that our country has the advantage of extra-scale economies of scale in the entire global trade due to its super-large industry. Such mature technical products, such as mechanical and electrical products, IT information and communication technology products, including products in the new energy industry, are in line with the entire global low-carbon and environmentally friendly products. Due to the super-scale economics of the Chinese industry, its average cost is very low. Therefore, compared with the world, enterprises in the same industry have a competitive advantage, making these homogeneous products a strong engine for China's export growth.
The General Administration of Customs responded to a Reuters question about overcapacity
At the press conference on the afternoon of the 12th, a Reuters reporter asked: Some analysts believe that the continuous decline in producer prices compared with the level of 2023 proves that Chinese producers have overcapacity, because it shows that manufacturers are cutting costs in the process of sales, and at the same time, China's exports fell by 7.5% year-on-year in March.
Wang Lingjun, Deputy Director General of the General Administration of Customs: First of all, we don't believe that the fall in producer prices means the so-called overcapacity. The decline in product prices is often related to various factors such as fluctuations in raw material prices, technological updates and iterations, and manufacturers' initiative to make profits. Especially in today's rapid development of science and technology, enterprises through continuous research and innovation, the use of new technologies, new processes, improve product quality, at the same time, effectively reduce production costs, and constantly expand the space to the downstream profits. Second, Chinese goods are widely welcomed around the world, relying on innovation and quality. For example, with strong R&D and production capacity, the intelligence and greening of China's home appliances have brought consumers a better experience and met the needs of a higher quality of life. Another example, reliable and durable, strong performance, complete after-sales service of Chinese construction machinery, hot sales all over the world, overseas major project construction sites, Chinese construction machinery abounds. Another example is Chinese ceramics, which are known as "important business cards of Chinese civilization", carrying Chinese culture and Chinese stories and exported overseas. These are the results of our corporate efforts, and they are also the rational choices of the majority of users and consumers. (Source: CCTV News)