On the afternoon of January 11, Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan received the joint interview from the journalist from People’s Daily Wang Ke, journalist from Xinhua News Agency Yu Jiaxin, journalist from CCTV Liu Ying and journalist from Economic Daily Feng Qiyu on implementing the spirits of Central Economic Work Conference.
Zhong Shan said that the Central Economic Work Conference made comprehensive deployment on doing a good economic job in new circumstances. Ministry of Commerce will deeply study and implement the spirits of the Central Economic Work Conference, implement the principle of “consolidating, strengthening, promoting and smoothing” of supply-side structural reform, implement the work requirements of “six stabilities,” and make efforts in “one promotion, two stabilities and three emphases ,” which means promoting consumption, stabilizing foreign trade and foreign investment, and the three key tasks including doing a good job in the second import Expo, properly handling China-US economic and trade frictions, promoting the construction of Free Trade Pilot Zones and exploring free trade ports. Ministry of Commerce will promote the formation of a strong domestic market, expand the all-around opening up, promote the transformation of flowing-type opening up of commodities and factors to institutional and rule-based opening up, strive to bolster the construction of a strong economic and trade country, and promote the high quality commercial development.
01. In 2018, consumption upgrading accelerated, and the growth of consumption bore some pressures. Central Economic Work Conference pointed out the promoting of the formation of a strong domestic market. What measures will Ministry of Commerce take in 2019 in promoting consumption?
Zhong Shan: Market demands are scarce resources in the world. Large market potential and good growth opportunities are China’s important competitive advantages. In 2018, China’s commodity consumption will exceed 38 trillion yuan, up about 9.1%, being the largest driving force of economic growth for 5 consecutive years. China securely became the largest country for commodity consumption.
In 2019, Ministry of Commerce will make efforts in starting from the supply side and continuing to conduct the action plan for consumption upgrading deeply. First, promote urban consumption. We will accelerate the reform and upgrade the first 11 pedestrian streets, promote the chain-orientation and brand development of convenient stores, and reform community commercial networks like vegetable markets, so as to promote consumption upgrading. Second, expand rural consumption. We will promote the work like e-commerce entering rural areas, construction of featured commercial and trade towns and the upgrading of farm products markets, and promote “industrial products’ going to the countryside, and agricultural products’ entering the urban areas.” We will promote five “Business Poverty Relief” ways including e-commerce, housekeeping, foreign labor, industries and border trade, so as to increase rural income and drive rural consumptions. Third, innovate circulation modes. Ministry of Commerce will optimize and upgrade 100 billion level commodity transaction markets, cultivate modern supply chain, promote the online and offline integration development of circulation enterprises and promote the effective connectivity of supply and demand. Fourth, develop service consumption. We will newly build a batch of consumption service centers for the convenience of the people both in rural and urban areas, promote the standardization of services like housekeeping and catering, and optimize credit system and products’ tracing system, so as to make the people feel relieved, satisfied and comfortable in eating, wearing and using, and better satisfy peoples’ demands for beautiful life.
02. In 2018, facing the extraordinarily complex and severe exterior environment, China’s foreign trade still realized rapid growth. In 2019, China will face more uncertainties, what will the Ministry of Commerce do to stabilize foreign trade?
Zhong Shan: Since the beginning of 2018, under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, the Ministry of Commerce firmly implements the decisions and deployments of the central government, and promotes the high quality development of foreign trade. The import and export hit new record high, with the volume in the first 11 months reaching US$ 4.2 trillion, up 14.8%, and the increment was US$ 540 billion, exceeding the total import and export in 2001. Export of high technological and high value added products grew steadily. The number of automobiles export was 1.06 million with the value totaling US$ 13.6 billion, and the export of complete equipment was US$ 125 billion. The export of private enterprises took up 48%, contributing 60.2% to the export growth. In the first 10 months, the service trade increased by 15%, reaching US$ 656.2 billion, ranking the second in the world. China’s status as a large country of trade was consolidated and the progress of constructing a strong country of trade was accelerated.
This year, facing the complex and changing international environment, we must earnestly implement the trade power action plan and improve quality while ensure the stability of foreign trade: first, we will further push forward the “five optimizations”. We will optimize the international market layout, expand 30 key markets, upgrade the markets of developed countries, and expand the markets of developing countries. We will optimize the domestic regional layout and increase the proportion of foreign trade in the central and western regions. We will optimize product structure and support the export of high-quality, high-tech and high value-added products such as equipment manufacturing. We will optimize business entities, support the development of private enterprises, and cultivate a number of competent and large influential enterprises and multinational companies. We will optimize trade modes, strengthen general trade, improve processing trade, develop other trade, and promote 35 comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zones and 14 market procurement trade mode pilots. Second, we will work hard in the “three constructions”. We will construct the foreign trade transformation and upgrading base, support the construction of international marketing service networks, and promote the construction of trade promotion platforms such as brand exhibitions in foreign countries. Third, we will promote 29 pieces of experience in service trade innovation and development pilot, and build export bases for special services such as digital services and traditional Chinese medicine to improve the development of service trade .
03 In the situation that global cross-border direct investment continues to be sluggish and international investment competition is intensifying, China's foreign investment in 2018 has shown a steady and good trend. How to maintain this trend in 2019 and achieve the goal of stabilizing foreign investment?
Zhong Shan: General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that China's policies on using foreign capital, the protection for the legitimate rights and interests of foreign-invested enterprises and the direction for providing better services for enterprises from various countries in China will not change. The Ministry of Commerce has always maintained the continuity and stability of its policies and actively and effectively utilized foreign capital. Last year, China utilized US$135 billion of foreign capital, an increase of 3%. While global foreign direct investment fell by 41% in the first half of last year and that of developed countries fell by 69%, China is still a hot country for global investment. The World Bank has raised China’s place in the business environment ranking by 32 places. Last month, the US-China Business Council’s survey showed that 90% companies believe that China is one of the most important markets, and 95% companies said they will increase their investment in China or maintain their current investment levels in the coming year.
In 2019, the Ministry of Commerce will continue to implement the foreign investment promotion action plan and strive to “stabilize foreign investment”: first, we will ease market access, continue to reduce the “negative list” of the national version and the pilot free trade zone, allow more regions to implement individual proprietorship, and promote the service industry to expand and open comprehensive pilots. Second, we will to optimize the structure of foreign capital, speed up the revision of the Foreign Investment Industries Guidance Catalogue and the Catalogue of Advantageous Industries in Foreign Investment in Central and Western Regions, and encourage foreign investment in manufacturing, high-tech industries and central and western regions. We will solve difficult problems and implement major foreign investment projects. Third, we will improve business environment, introduce foreign investment laws as soon as possible, improve the central and local foreign investment complaint handling mechanisms and strive to create first-class environment for intimate, safe and rich business.
04 The China International import Expo, China-US trade friction and the pilot free trade zone and the free trade port have had great influence at home and abroad. Some Central media have listed these three events into the Top Ten Events in 2018. How will the Ministry of Commerce make efforts in the three key tasks next?
Zhongshan: The Central Economic Work Conference has made deployments on the three tasks. This is an important political task appointed by the CPC Central Committee to the Ministry of Commerce, and it is also the top priority work of the Ministry of Commerce this year. We will spare no efforts to carefully and effectively make achivements in the three tasks in the spirit of hammering away until a task is done and with the skill of embroidering.
We will work hard in successfully holding the second China International import Expo. We will deeply implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's guidance of “good performance, good results and continued success” and continue to build a world-class expo. We will hold high-standard diplomatic events, high-level forums to improve the international influence of the Hongqiao International Economic Forum and high-quality exhibitions to showcase more quality goods, technologies and services, meet the needs for development and progress of enterprises and meet people's needs for a better life.
We will do a good job in dealing with China-US trade and economic friction. On December 1, 2018, the heads of state of China and the United States successfully met in Argentina and reached important consensus. In accordance with the central government's unified deployment, we will conscientiously implement the consensus of the two heads of state, promote China-US economic and trade consultations and negotiations, deepen cooperation with the US states, business community and local community, safeguard the stability of China-US economic and trade relations, and realize win-win cooperation.
We will promote the pilot free trade zone construction and explore the free trade port construction. We will grant the 12 pilot free trade zones more autonomy in reform, accelerate the implementation of pilot tasks and strive to achieve more institutional innovations. We will support the expansion of the new areas of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, promote the construction of the Hainan Island Pilot Free Trade Zone, accelerate the exploration of the free trade port construction with Chinese characteristics, and create a new highland for reform and opening up.
