On June 15, the comprehensive Department of the Ministry of Commerce and the Institute of international trade and economic cooperation jointly issued the report on China's foreign trade situation (spring 2020). The report reviews the operation of China's foreign trade in 2019 and the first five months of 2020, and analyzes the development environment of China's foreign trade in 2020.
According to the report, in the context of the overall slowdown of global economy and trade in 2019, China's foreign trade will grow against the trend, set a new record in scale, achieve stable and quality improvement, and achieve new results in high-quality development. In 2020, the development of foreign trade will face more environmental uncertainties, the circulation of industrial chain supply chain will be blocked, and the international trade investment will shrink. Domestic enterprises, especially small and medium-sized and micro enterprises, are facing more and more difficulties. The risks and challenges faced by China's foreign trade development are extremely complex and severe. At the same time, it should also be noted that with the gradual alleviation of the impact of the domestic epidemic situation and the gradual return to normal economic production activities, there is still a solid foundation and strong support to stabilize the basic foreign trade situation and promote the stability and quality of foreign trade.
Global economy and trade are hit hard by epidemic situation
The sudden outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia has had a great impact on international trade. Not long ago, the World Trade Organization (WTO) predicted that global commodity trade would decline by 13% to 32% in 2020, and almost all regions would have double-digit decline. At the same time, the report released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and development also pointed out that the epidemic has caused serious impact on the economies of both developing and developed countries. It is expected that the trade of many developing countries will dro sharply in the second quarter of this year, and the trade contraction is more serious than that during the global financial crisis in 2008.
According to the report, the impact of the epidemic on global economy and trade is mainly reflected in four aspects
First, export orders decreased. The international market demand is shrinking seriously, and foreign trade enterprises are generally faced with problems such as cancellation or delay of orders in hand and difficulties in signing new orders. Small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises are more affected.
Second, the supply chain of industrial chain is blocked. Production in major economies has been largely suspended, and the upstream supply chain of Chinese enterprises has been blocked or broken.
Third, trade costs have risen. Many countries take measures to restrict the flow of people, logistics and trade, which has a great impact on the smooth flow of international logistics such as shipping and air transportation.
Fourth, the enterprise capital chain is under pressure. A large number of overseas customers delay, compress or even cancel orders, resulting in a rapid rise in the risk of breach of contract, lengthening the account period of foreign trade payment, and increasing the risk of foreign exchange collection.
Wang Huiyao, director of the globalization think tank, said, "in the coming months and years, opening up trade is crucial for countries' cooperation in fighting against epidemic diseases, balancing global supply and demand, and promoting long-term economic growth."
China's measures are timely and effective
According to novel coronavirus pneumonia, the total import and export volume of the whole country decreased by 4.9% from 1 to May, but it still showed the bright points of "the increase of private enterprises' export proportion", "the increase of the export proportion of the central and western regions" and "the increase in the import volume of major commodities".
The report pointed out that in the face of the huge impact of the epidemic on foreign trade, the Chinese government promptly issued a series of policies and measures to stabilize foreign trade, playing a "combination fist" of policies, and making every effort to stabilize the basic market of foreign trade.
For example, in terms of precise assistance to enterprises, we should further improve the export tax rebate policy, reduce the burden of enterprises, further expand the coverage of short-term insurance of export credit insurance, and promote the reasonable reduction of the rate; in terms of optimizing the international market layout, we should encourage the holding of online exhibitions, explore a new mode of online and offline synchronous interaction and organic integration, and make full use of modern information technology to help enterprises In terms of cultivating new business forms and new models of trade, 46 cross-border e-commerce comprehensive experimental zones have been set up to give full play to the unique advantages of cross-border e-commerce in terms of Taxation, supervision and facilitation; in terms of supporting the development of processing trade, it has suspended the collection of tax deferred interest for domestic sales of processing trade enterprises, and expanded the pilot project of selecive taxation for domestic sales
Peng Zhiwei, director of the Department of international economy and trade of Nankai University, pointed out in an interview with our reporter that as a big trading country in the world, China has taken a series of effective measures in response to the epidemic, helping foreign trade enterprises to protect the market, order, cooperation and share, and maximize the market players in the field of foreign trade.
"Judging from the situation in the first five months of this year, the decline rate of foreign trade import and export is lower than the overall decline of macro-economy, which confirms the positive results of stabilizing foreign trade from one side." Peng said.
Great potential of "promoting stability and quality"
According to the report, at present, with the gradual alleviation of the impact of the domestic epidemic situation and the gradual return to normal economic production activities, there is still a solid foundation and strong support to stabilize the annual basic foreign trade situation and promote the stability and quality of foreign trade.
"In the short term, China's foreign trade development is facing unprecedented risks and challenges. In the long run, China has a strong industrial foundation and the most complete industrial system in the world. China has a solid foundation for trade cooperation with relevant countries and has great potential. China's products are of high quality, low price and good reputation. During the epidemic period, the export of epidemic prevention materials increased rapidly, and new business forms such as cross-border e-commerce developed vigorously, which fully demonstrated the characteristics of China's foreign trade with great resilience, full potential and strong competitiveness 。” Analysis of the report.
Peng Zhiwei further pointed out that in 2019, under the background of global economic and trade slowdown as a whole, China's foreign trade increased against the trend, reached a new record in scale, achieved stable and improved quality, achieved new results in high-quality development, made positive contributions to the national economic and social development, and injected impetus into the recovery and growth of global economy and trade. All these are the foundation for China to "stabilize the basic foreign trade market" and "achieve high-quality development".
