On July 13, my country's foreign trade semi-annual report was released. In the face of a complex and severe external environment, my country's foreign trade import and export in the first half of this year improved steadily and met expectations: a year-on-year increase of 2.1%, and the scale exceeded 20 trillion yuan for the first time in the same period of history.
Lv Daliang, director of the Statistics and Analysis Department of the General Administration of Customs, said that at present, the recovery of the world economy is weak, global trade and investment are slowing down, and risks such as unilateralism, protectionism and geopolitics are rising, but my country's foreign trade has withstood the pressure and stabilized its scale. , The quality has been improved, and the development of foreign trade is generally stable.
New Breakthrough - The scale of foreign trade hits a record high in the same period
20.1 trillion yuan—my country's imports and exports maintained growth in the first half of the year, and the scale hit a new high.
"This is the first time in the same period of history, and it is a milestone new breakthrough." Lv Daliang commented that in terms of increment, the total value of my country's foreign trade imports and exports in the first half of the year increased by more than 400 billion yuan year-on-year, equivalent to my country's last year. The total value of more than 3 million car exports throughout the year.
"This report card is really not easy." Yang Guangpu, director of the Research Office of the Macroeconomic Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said that this is to overcome unfavorable factors such as the obvious decline in demand in major developed economies, continued geopolitical conflicts, and rising trade protectionism. After the epidemic, global retail companies have accelerated their destocking, and new breakthroughs have been made when the previous "one-time driving factors" such as epidemic prevention materials and "stay-at-home economy" products have subsided, demonstrating the growth momentum and development resilience of my country's foreign trade under pressure.
Price and quantity are two apparent factors that affect the scale of trade. Throughout the first half of the year, the total value of my country's foreign trade has grown steadily, from 9.76 trillion yuan in the first quarter to 10.34 trillion yuan in the second quarter, achieving positive growth year-on-year; in addition, the import and export in the second quarter increased by 6% month-on-month. , June all chain growth of 1.2%.
In addition to the continuous increase in trade volume, the increase in volume has also made the growth of foreign trade more solid. According to calculations, in the first quarter, my country's imports and exports both decreased compared with the same period last year. However, in the second quarter, the imports and exports turned into a "double increase" year-on-year. The imports in the quarter increased by 5.9%, and the exports increased by 2%.
"The growth of trade scale driven by the increase in trade volume means that my country's foreign trade import and export has a solid foundation and is a real growth." Lu Daliang said.
New Highlights—Stronger Vitality, Better Structure, Convergence of Kinetic Energy
"The first batch of 27 boxes of dried wild anchovies imported from Kenya has entered the warehouse of the production base, and about 60 tons of dried anchovies are waiting to be shipped by sea in Kenya recently." Liu Teyuan, executive deputy general manager of Jinzai Food Group Co., Ltd. recently Quite busy, the snack food produced by the company has been exported to about 30 countries around the world, including the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and South Korea. In the first half of this year, the company's import and export trade volume increased steadily, with a year-on-year increase of over 30%.
In the Pingjiang High-tech Industrial Park in Yueyang City, Hunan Province, the staff of the laboratory of Pingjiang Production Base of Jinzai Foods unpacked the boxes and prepared to test the moisture content of Kenyan wild anchovy products (photographed on June 28). On June 29, the Kenyan wild anchovy products imported by China for the first time were unveiled at the third China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo opened in Changsha, Hunan. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Sun Ruibo
The reporter's recent research in various places found that as the effects of a series of policies and measures to stabilize foreign trade continue to appear, foreign trade personnel are more motivated to expand the market, foreign trade enterprises are more vigorous in their development, and foreign trade import and export highlights are emerging frequently.
——The vitality of foreign trade has strengthened. In the first half of the year, there were 540,000 foreign trade enterprises in my country with import and export performance, an increase of 6.9% year-on-year. Among them, private enterprises with high operating flexibility and strong market adaptability are still the main force for the steady growth of foreign trade. In the first half of the year, the growth rate of import and export was 6.8 percentage points higher than that of the whole, and the scale accounted for 52.7% of the total value of import and export. The overall increase was 4.4 percentage points.
——The structure of foreign trade is better. From the perspective of trade mode, in the first half of the year, the growth rate of general trade imports and exports with longer industrial chains and higher added value was faster than that of the whole, and its proportion in the total value of imports and exports increased by 1.2 percentage points to 65.5%. At the same time, cross-border The advantages and potential of e-commerce in "buying the world and selling the world" continued to be released, and the import and export reached 1.1 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16%.
——Foreign trade momentum converges. In the first half of the year, my country's imports and exports to ASEAN, Latin America, Africa, and Central Asia increased by 5.4%, 7%, 10.5%, and 35.6% year-on-year respectively, all of which were higher than the overall growth rate of imports and exports in the same period; The import and export of free trade ports increased by 8.6% and 26.4% respectively. The total export of electric passenger vehicles, lithium batteries, and solar cells, known as the "new three", increased by 61.6%, driving the overall export growth by 1.8 percentage points.
New challenges - there are many unstable, uncertain and unpredictable factors
The WTO expects global trade in goods to grow by 1.7% this year, which is significantly lower than the average level of 2.6% in the past 12 years; inflation in major developed economies is still high, and continuous interest rate hikes have suppressed investment and consumer demand; China's manufacturing purchases in June The Managers Index (PMI) continued to be in the contraction range, of which the new export order index fell by 0.8 percentage points from the previous month, falling for 4 consecutive months...
Yang Guangpu said that in the coming period, no matter from the perspective of the overall demand of the global economy or from the perspective of the adjustment process of the international economic and trade structure, the pressure of capacity transfer and order transfer will be difficult to eliminate in the short term, and there will still be many unstable, uncertain and unpredictable factors. However, the steady growth of my country's foreign trade is still under great pressure.
On June 11, 2023, workers loaded goods for export in the import and export logistics park next to the Erlianhot port. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Peng Yuan
Lu Daliang said that trade slowdown is a common challenge faced by all economies, and the difficulties are more global. Compared with the surrounding economies that have published data, my country's foreign trade competitiveness has been steadily strengthened. "We calculated based on the latest international data released by the WTO. In the first four months, my country's export products accounted for a small increase in the international market share, which shows that our foreign trade has shown stronger competitiveness."
The more unstable and uncertain the external environment is, the more determined we must be to handle our own affairs well. Since the beginning of this year, my country's foreign trade stabilization policy toolbox has continued to be enriched: the State Council issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Stable Scale and Optimum Structure of Foreign Trade", emphasizing the stabilization and expansion of the import and export scale of key products, and accelerating the innovative development of foreign trade; the Ministry of Commerce increased foreign trade The support of enterprises to participate in various overseas exhibitions has improved the comprehensive utilization rate of free trade agreements; the General Administration of Customs has launched 16 new measures to optimize the business environment to further stabilize social expectations and boost confidence in foreign trade development...
Lu Daliang said that my country's economy has strong resilience, great potential, and sufficient vitality, and the fundamentals of long-term improvement have not changed. Coupled with a good industrial system and complete production capacity, the development of foreign trade is resilient and has a large room for maneuver. At the same time, our country insists on opening up to the outside world and actively promotes international economic and trade cooperation. "With a series of policy measures continuing to make efforts, we have the confidence, foundation, and conditions to achieve the goal of promoting stability and improving quality of imports and exports."