The Paper's trainee reporter Hou Jiacheng
On October 13, data released by the General Administration of Customs showed that the total value of China's imports and exports in the first three quarters of this year was 4.37 trillion US dollars, an increase of 32.8% year-on-year. Among them, exports were 2.4 trillion US dollars, an increase of 33% year-on-year; imports were 1.97 trillion US dollars, an increase of 32.6% year-on-year; and the trade surplus was 427.54 billion US dollars.
Source: General Administration of Customs
In the first three quarters of this year, China's total import and export value was 28.33 trillion yuan, an increase of 22.7% year-on-year. Among them, exports were 15.55 trillion yuan, an increase of 22.7% year-on-year; imports were 12.78 trillion yuan, an increase of 22.6% year-on-year; and the trade surplus was 2.77 trillion yuan.
Specifically in September, in US dollar terms, China's imports and exports totaled US$544.7 billion, up 23.3% year-on-year, compared with 28.8% in the previous month and 2.7% month-on-month. Among them, exports of 305.7 billion US dollars, an increase of 28.1% year-on-year, far more than the market expectation of 21.5%; imports of 239 billion US dollars, an increase of 17.6% year-on-year, lower than the market expectation of 20.9%.
Observing the export data since the beginning of this year, it can be seen that due to the impact of the epidemic last year, the year-on-year growth rate of exports surged to 154.7% in February. Since the second quarter of 2020, China's foreign trade has shown a trend of stopping the decline and rebounding, so the steady recovery of the same period last year has also made the year-on-year growth rate of total export value in 2021 enter a relatively stable trend after March. It wasn't until July that export growth saw a marked decline, pulling back to 19.3 percent from 32.2 percent in June. However, export growth rebounded to 25.6% in August and maintained an upward trend in September, exceeding market expectations in both months.
Conversely, import growth fell to its lowest year-on-year growth rate in September, below the monthly growth rate of exports for the first time since March.
How to see the export growth rate in September exceeded expectations
Considering the high base effect of the export situation in the second half of last year, the resumption of work and production abroad in the second half of this year is expected to accelerate the recovery of The "crowding out effect" on China's exports, the flood conditions in some parts of China in the third quarter, the epidemic situation and the "pull-out and power curtailment" situation, the market predicts that the growth rate of China's exports this year will remain "high before and low after low", that is, the growth rate of foreign trade in the third and fourth quarters will gradually decline.
It is in this context that China's exports exceeded market expectations for two consecutive months. In particular, the export growth rate in September was 2.5 percentage points higher than the growth rate in August.
Lian Ping, chief economist of Zhixin Investment and president of the research institute, told the surging news that because the supply capacity of some developed and developing countries is still suppressed by the epidemic, external demand has driven exports to a certain extent; the transportation channels are not smooth, which has lengthened the shipping period of Chinese enterprises, and the global shipping tension has also made the inventory backlog of enterprises in the early stage to promote further exports.
Commodity prices may be the main reason for the slowdown in imports
"Rising commodity prices are the main contributor to the growth of import amounts, but because their prices are rising relatively fast, they have also slowed down the growth rate of imports significantly." Lian Ping said.
Li Kuiwen, spokesman for the General Administration of Customs and director of the Department of Statistical Analysis, analyzed at a press conference that the import volume of bulk commodities in the first three quarters of this year was reduced and the price increased. In the first three quarters, the import and export freight volume under customs supervision was 3.74 billion tons, an increase of 3%, of which imports were 2.43 billion tons, a decrease of 0.5%.
Taking coal and lignite, which the market is more concerned about, as an example, according to the statistics of the General Administration of Customs, the cumulative amount of coal imports in the first three quarters of this year decreased by 3.6% year-on-year compared with the same period last year, while the cumulative import amount increased by 26.1% year-on-year. This shows the phenomenon of "volume reduction and price increase" of coal imports.
The surging news reporter found that although the monthly import volume and the amount of dollar statistics from January to July this year showed the same trend of change, the increase in the amount was greater than the increase in quantity. In August, the quantity and amount of coal and lignite imports showed the opposite trend, and in the case of the decline in quantity, the amount continued to rise, and the situation of volume reduction and price increase became particularly obvious. Although the number of coal imports rebounded in September, the amount also maintained rapid growth.
Li Kuiwen said that since the second half of last year, due to the recovery of global economic and trade demand from the epidemic, global liquidity quantitative easing, some developed economies to adopt strong fiscal and financial stimulus policies, and speculation and speculation and other factors, some commodity international market prices have shown a rapid upward trend.
"Due to the rebound of the epidemic abroad, it has also led to serious congestion in some overseas ports, poor international logistics supply chains, a sharp decline in ship operation efficiency and empty container turnover rate, resulting in tight capacity on related routes and imbalance between supply and demand." Li Kuiwen said.
Lian Ping said that commodity prices have still been under upward pressure recently, and this situation may continue for some time in the fourth quarter.
"This situation has a lot to do with the global supply-demand gap. If global supply capacity can rise and commodity production, mining, and transportation capacity can be improved, commodity prices may gradually fall after reaching a high point in 2022. Lian Ping said.
What is the future import and export situation?
"It is worth noting the scale of Sino-US trade, with Sino-US imports and exports reaching 3.52 trillion yuan in the first three quarters of this year, an increase of 24.9% year-on-year, and the fastest growth among all trade objects." Wen Bin, chief economist of Minsheng Bank, said that to a certain extent, this reflects the huge complementarity and trade potential between China and the United States in terms of industrial structure and trade structure.
Lian Ping said that the problem of maintaining steady growth in imports is not big, especially the trade negotiations between China and the United States, which have begun to move forward in the brewing; if this problem can be improved at the end of the year in the future, there will also be obvious driving force for promoting China's imports from the United States.
For the future export growth rate, Lian Ping said that "mixed joys and sorrows". "At present, the export growth rate has maintained a state of continued high growth." Lian Ping said that the rise in transportation costs, the rise in labor costs, the congestion of ports, the shortage of containers and chips, and the weakening of order pull in Europe and the United States such as Christmas in the future may cause some pressure on China's exports. After the epidemic improves at the beginning of the year, the supply capacity of some developed and emerging economies is likely to improve, which will also put pressure on China's exports.
Li Kuiwen also said that there are many favorable and unfavorable factors affecting the development of foreign trade at present.
"On the one hand, the fundamentals of China's long-term economic improvement have not changed, and the development trend of stable and qualitative increase in foreign trade has been well supported." On the other hand, the global epidemic situation is fluctuating, the world economy is recovering from difficulties, the external environment is becoming more complex and severe, and there are still many unstable and uncertain factors facing the development of China's foreign trade. Li Kuiwen said, "Considering the impact of the high base of foreign trade in 2020, the growth rate of imports and exports in the fourth quarter of this year may decline." ”
Editor-in-Charge: Zheng Jingxin