China has made renewed efforts to stabilize foreign trade. The recently held executive meeting of the State Council made it clear that it is necessary to strengthen service guarantees for overseas exhibitions and negotiations; to establish a new batch of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones; and to improve the efficiency of port collection and distribution and domestic transportation. Analysts here believe that the introduction of policies to stabilize foreign trade at this time may have the effect of getting twice the result with half the effort because the timing is right.
Currently, China’s foreign trade is at a critical moment. According to official statistics, China’s total import and export value in the first eight months of this year was 27.3 trillion yuan (RMB, the same below), a year-on-year increase of 10.1%. At a time when global trade is overall weak, this “report card” is eye-catching compared with the world’s major developed economies.
However, the prospects for foreign trade are not rest assured. Gao Lingyun, a researcher at the Institute of World Economics and Politics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that China’s foreign trade is currently in a critical period of good development, but the epidemic continues to evolve, the risk of stagflation in the world economy is rising, and the monetary policy contraction of major developed economies has amplified the situation. Uncertainty in the external demand market.
Gao Lingyun said that to consolidate the good trend of increasing foreign trade volume and improving quality, more policies and measures need to be introduced to help foreign trade companies explore new markets, develop new business formats, and develop new products. It is the right time to stabilize foreign trade policy at this time.
Wei Jianguo, vice chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, also said that foreign trade has always been known as “gold nine and silver ten”. At present, Europe and the United States are about to usher in the peak Christmas consumption season. Many large supermarkets also need to replenish their inventories due to supply chain obstructions some time ago. Europe also needs to reserve a large number of winter goods. This is an excellent opportunity for Chinese foreign trade companies to obtain new orders. Therefore, seizing the current window of time to introduce supportive policies in a timely manner is critical to stabilizing foreign trade throughout the year and even in the coming year.
Different from the previous ones, the new round of foreign trade stabilization policies proposed by the State Council executive meeting has made more detailed arrangements for ensuring orders. The meeting made it clear that we will support guaranteed orders to expand the market and strengthen service guarantees such as outbound exhibition participation and negotiation.
The difficulty in receiving orders is one of the biggest “pain points” for foreign trade companies at present. A survey recently released by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade showed that 62.5% of foreign trade companies said orders were unstable, with more short-term and small orders and fewer long-term and large orders. Many companies are looking forward to resuming domestic exhibitions and liberalizing overseas participation in order to obtain more orders.
To stabilize foreign trade, to a large extent, we need to stabilize orders. Only if orders are not lost can China’s foreign trade “keep green mountains”. The official has clearly strengthened service guarantees such as outbound exhibition participation and negotiation, which is undoubtedly a good thing for foreign trade companies that urgently need to obtain new orders at large international exhibitions.
In addition to targeted solutions to the pain points of foreign trade companies, this State Council executive meeting also gave greater support to cross-border e-commerce. The meeting called for the establishment of a new batch of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones as soon as possible and greater support for overseas warehouses.
Cross-border e-commerce played a prominent role in boosting foreign trade during the epidemic prevention and control period and has become a new engine supporting trade development. According to official statistics, China has become the world’s largest cross-border e-commerce retail export economy, with total cross-border e-commerce import and export volume approaching 2 trillion yuan last year. In the first half of this year, China’s cross-border e-commerce import and export volume increased by 28.6% year-on-year, with export growth as high as 44.1%.
Currently, China has more than 130 cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones. Analysts believe that encouraging the expansion of the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone, supporting its pilot trials, and making full use of online and offline channels will help expand diversified market space and promote the stability and quality of foreign trade.
Zhang Li, director of the E-Commerce Research Institute of the International Trade and Economic Cooperation Institute of the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, said that the establishment of a comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zone is to guide enterprises to reallocate, integrate, and improve channel resources according to the development laws and market trends of cross-border e-commerce. demand, build a comprehensive cross-border e-commerce service system from the supply chain, value chain and resource chain, drive China’s cross-border e-commerce towards high-quality development, and inject more impetus into stabilizing foreign trade.
Wei Jianguo said that from the perspective of measures such as supporting companies to secure orders to expand markets and improve logistics efficiency, the tone of the foreign trade stabilization policy deployed by the State Council executive meeting is more proactive, which will help foreign trade companies win in the current fierce market competition. machine.
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