■China Economic Times reporter Li Hainan
China's foreign trade has shown a clear upward trend due to its continued resilience – data released by the General Administration of Customs on May 9 showed that in the first four months of 2024, the total value of imports and exports of goods in mainland China was 13.81 trillion yuan, up 5.7% year-on-year. Among them, the import and export performance of the countries jointly building the "Belt and Road" is outstanding, the import and export of the western part of the mainland leads the country, and the number of foreign trade operators has increased significantly.
1
The Belt and Road countries led the growth of the foreign trade of mainland trading partners
Lv Daliang, director of the Department of Statistics and Analysis of the General Administration of Customs, said that since the beginning of this year, the positive factors in the field of foreign trade in the mainland have been increasing, and the momentum has continued to increase.
From the perspective of trading partners, in the first four months, the mainland's total imports and exports to the "Belt and Road" countries reached 6.54 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.4%, accounting for 47.4% of the total import and export value.
The strong data has triggered infinite reverie from all walks of life about the future growth space of foreign trade in the "Belt and Road" countries.
Wang Hao, a professor at the China Economic Research Center of the National School of Development of Peking University, told the China Economic Times that there is still a lot of room for development in foreign trade between the mainland and the countries that jointly build the "Belt and Road". In addition to the growing demand for infrastructure cooperation, there is also great potential for trade in mineral resources. He believes that most of the countries that jointly build the "Belt and Road" belong to developing countries and emerging market forces, and in the future, in the process of participating in the construction of these countries and promoting market prosperity, China will expand the scale of trade through division of labor and cooperation.
Jia Ruoxiang, director and researcher of the Comprehensive Research Office of the Institute of Land Development and Regional Economy of the China Macroeconomic Research Institute, stressed in an interview with a reporter from the China Economic Times that continuously optimizing the trade structure, increasing the proportion of high value-added products, increasing the proportion of service trade and technology trade, enhancing technological innovation capabilities, enhancing the international image of "Made in China" and "Made in China", and strengthening brand building will be the focus of the mainland's foreign trade in the future.
2
The growth rate of foreign trade in the western region leads the country
"In the first four months, imports and exports in the western region increased by 8.9 percent, 3.2 percentage points higher than the whole." According to data from the General Administration of Customs, in the first four months of this year, the import and export of the western part of the mainland was 1.25 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.9%; The import and export of the eastern region was 11.07 trillion yuan, an increase of 7.2 percent. In the same period, the import and export of the central and northeast regions were 1.07 trillion yuan and 412.94 billion yuan respectively.
In Jia Ruoxiang's view, with the continuous improvement of the function of the opening platform in the western region, the continuous smooth opening of the channel, and the improvement of the open environment, especially the continuous and in-depth promotion of the construction of the new land-sea corridor in the western region, the western region is changing from the "edge" of opening up to the "frontier" of opening up.
"The export performance of automobiles, auto parts, lamps and lanterns, electrical control devices and other products in the western region is relatively bright, and labor-intensive products are also showing a rapid growth trend, becoming the main force to promote the rapid growth of imports and exports in the western region." Jia Ruoxiang stressed that in the future, as the high-level opening up of the western region continues to advance, the import and export of the western region will continue to improve both quality and quantity.
According to the data, in the first four months, the exports of electric vehicles, integrated circuits and laptops in the western region increased by 176%, 22.6% and 13.5% respectively. In the same period, in the growth of imports and exports in the western region, imports and exports to the Belt and Road countries increased by 15.9 percent, which was 9.5 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of the mainland's foreign trade with the Belt and Road countries.
Wang Hao believes that the increase in trade with the countries that jointly build the "Belt and Road" is a major advantage of the western region to strengthen and expand the scale of foreign trade. "In addition, the western region should give full play to its comparative advantages, such as the advantage of labor costs, so as to fully tap and mobilize the growth potential of foreign trade." He said.
3
The rise in demand has made private foreign trade enterprises collectively pick up
According to the data, in the first four months, the number of foreign trade operators with import and export performance in the mainland increased by 8.6% year-on-year. Among them, the number of private enterprises increased by 10.1 percent, and the import and export value increased by 10.7 percent, accounting for 54.6 percent of the mainland's foreign trade, an increase of 2.5 percentage points over the same period last year.
The rise in demand has contributed to this. "The rapid increase in the number of foreign trade operators of private enterprises is related to the increase in foreign demand." Wang Hao's analysis believes that in the future, we should focus on the development of trade with regions outside North America, although the cost of trade may be higher, but the development prospects are promising.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development recently said that the growth rate of global trade in goods and services could increase to 2.3% in 2024 from 1% last year and reach 3.3% in 2025, adding that "China's exports will grow again as global demand recovers and more and more Chinese goods become competitive in international markets".
This sign has begun to emerge in a number of internationally competitive Chinese-made products. "The exports of private enterprises in higher value-added fields such as automobiles, new energy, electronic products, ships and marine engineering have shown a relatively strong trend." Jia Ruoxiang pointed out that the system and mechanism of private enterprises are flexible, and "the ship is good to turn around", so they can adapt to market changes more flexibly and seek to capture market opportunities. He suggested that at present and in the future, private foreign trade enterprises must further enhance their innovation capabilities and product quality, strengthen brand building, and continue to enhance the competitiveness of products in the international market.
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