China's Foreign Trade Import and Export Delivered a Robust Response Paper -- Interpretation of China's Foreign Trade Import and Export Data for the First 11 Months

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, December 7 (Xinhua News Agency) Question: China's Foreign Trade Import and Export Delivered a Steady Answer Sheet - Interpretation of China's Foreign Trade Import and Export Data for the First 11 Months

Xinhua News Agency reporter Zou Duowei, Huang Yaoteng, Wang Wei

It is less than a month since the "end" of 2022, and the data released by the General Administration of Customs on the 7th shows that despite the complex and severe external environment, foreign trade import and export still delivered a stable response: From January to November, China's total import and export value of goods trade was 38.34 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.6% year-on-year.

Zhuang Rui, a professor at the National Institute of Opening up at the University of International Business and Economics, said that in the winter, multiple factors such as repeated epidemics, increased costs, and exchange rate fluctuations have affected the enthusiasm and activity of some enterprises in foreign trade. Against this background, China's foreign trade has maintained rapid growth and played an important supporting role in stabilizing the macroeconomic market.

"Behind this, there are both macro levels, including the implementation of a series of policies and measures to help enterprises reduce taxes and fees by governments at all levels, and increase the provision of foreign trade credit. There are also micro levels, where China's foreign trade enterprises actively cultivate their 'internal skills', continuously enhancing their risk resistance ability and enhancing their competitiveness through exploring the domestic market, strengthening technological innovation, optimizing internal management processes, and other ways." She further analyzed and said.

Sorting out this foreign trade "transcript", it is found that in the first 11 months, both the trade entity structure, the international market structure, and the export commodity structure have shown a trend of transformation, upgrading, and continuous optimization.

From the perspective of foreign trade entities, the number of private enterprises with import and export performance nationwide increased by 7.3% year-on-year, totaling 19.41 trillion yuan in imports and exports, up 13.6% year-on-year, accounting for 50.6% of China's total foreign trade value during the same period, up 2.2 percentage points compared to the same period last year, and continuing to play the role of the "main force" of foreign trade.

From the perspective of trading partners, ASEAN remains China's largest trading partner. During the same period, China's imports and exports to ASEAN increased by 15.5% year-on-year, accounting for 15.4% of China's total foreign trade value. At the same time, China has closer economic and trade exchanges with countries along the "the Belt and Road". The year-on-year growth of imports and exports was 20.4%, 11.8 percentage points higher than the overall growth of national foreign trade, driving the overall growth of imports and exports by 6 percentage points.

From the perspective of export product types, both mechanical and electrical products and labor intensive products have achieved growth in exports. Among them, the increase in the export of high-tech products is a major bright spot: the export of electric passenger cars, lithium batteries, solar cells, and other products increased by 128%, 86.6%, and 74.3%, respectively.

Recently, at the container terminal of Qinzhou Port in Guangxi, SAIC General Motors Wuling Automobile Co., Ltd. is preparing to ship a batch of new energy vehicle parts worth 30 million yuan to Indonesia. After completing export declaration to Qinzhou Port Customs through the "early declaration" mode, these accessories will rely on the new land and sea corridor in the west to achieve seamless connection between railway and sea transportation, greatly shortening the "sailing" time.

"By the end of November, the company's overseas sales volume this year had exceeded 167000 units, a year-on-year increase of 27%. Especially, electric vehicles have become a new growth pole for our exports." Li Shuying, General Manager of SAIC GM-Wuling Overseas Business and Engineering Center, told reporters, "Today, Wuling Automobile has a footprint in global markets such as Central and South America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. The company has also established a full process vehicle production base in Indonesia, and global research and development is gradually advancing."

Zhuang Rui believes that the strong tenacity displayed by the highlights of foreign trade, on the one hand, benefits from the new advantages and new driving forces dug out in the process of deepening the advanced manufacturing industry, which has played a solid role in promoting the growth of China's foreign trade; On the other hand, a large number of institutional innovations launched through major initiatives such as the "the Belt and Road Initiative", the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), and the Free Trade Pilot Zone have also injected impetus and vitality into the high-quality development of foreign trade.

Although foreign trade has generally made steady progress, it should also be noted that in recent months, due to weak external demand, geopolitical and other factors, the monthly growth rate of imports and exports has slowed down. Entering the fourth quarter, the complexity and uncertainty of the domestic and foreign environment exceeded expectations, and insufficient foreign demand became a prominent challenge. At the same time, the impact of a high base at the end of last year gradually emerged, further weighing on foreign trade imports and exports.

The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly proposes "accelerating the construction of a powerful trade country", and deploys important measures to adhere to the opening up, emphasizing "promoting the optimization and upgrading of trade in goods", "innovating the development mechanism of trade in services", and "developing digital trade". The Political Bureau meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held on the 6th also pointed out that "we should promote high-level opening up and make greater efforts to attract and utilize foreign capital."

In response to the current pressures and challenges, Shu Jueting, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, said recently that China's foreign trade development still has strong support, with a sound foundation in the foreign trade industry, continuously enhancing the ability of enterprises to fulfill contracts and innovate, continuously releasing the effects of foreign trade stabilization policies, significantly increasing international flights, and maintaining a reasonable range of foreign trade operations in the fourth quarter.

"The development trend of stabilizing and improving the quality of China's foreign trade has not changed," Zhuang Rui said. During the crucial window period of sprinting to stabilize the economy at the end of the year, it is necessary to fully implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, make full use of resources from all parties, and make every effort to implement the package of policies and follow-up measures to stabilize the economy in accordance with the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, to ensure that China's foreign trade continues to make positive contributions to consolidating the upward trend of economic stability.