In April, the International Monetary Fund lowered the global economic growth rate: from 2.9% to 2.8%, believing that the slowdown in economic growth in developed countries will be very obvious. In the context of the slow recovery of the global economy, in the first quarter, China once again achieved a good result of 4.8% growth in foreign trade imports and exports, achieving "opening the door and stabilizing". At the press conference on "Promoting Foreign Trade with Stable Scale and Optimum Structure" held by the State Council Information Office today, relevant officials from the Ministry of Commerce, the People's Bank of China, and the General Administration of Customs gave a detailed introduction to the promotion of foreign trade with stable scale and optimal structure. In the next step, China will make a good combination of "stabilizing scale and optimizing structure" to inject strong impetus into the development of foreign trade.

Seeking progress while maintaining stability, the vitality of foreign trade enterprises is enhanced

In the context of weak global economic recovery, my country's foreign trade imports and exports achieved steady growth in the first quarter. At the press conference this morning, Wang Shouwen, International Trade Negotiator and Vice Minister of the Ministry of Commerce, introduced that in the first quarter, my country's foreign trade imports and exports achieved a growth of 4.8%. At the same time, there are 457,000 foreign trade enterprises with actual import and export in my country, a year-on-year increase of 5.9%. From the data point of view, the vitality of my country's foreign trade enterprises continues to increase, which strongly supports the steady growth of foreign trade.

However, looking at the global environment and domestic development status, the development of my country's foreign trade industry still faces many challenges. "From the perspective of business entities, my country's foreign trade enterprises also face some constraints and difficulties, such as the inconvenience of participating in foreign exhibitions, rising trade risks, and increased operating pressure." Wang Shouwen said that under this background, on April 7, The executive meeting of the State Council studied policies and measures to promote the stable scale and optimal structure of foreign trade. In terms of specific implementation, Wang Shouwen analyzed that it will help the industry recover from two aspects of stabilizing the scale and optimizing the structure. In terms of "stabilizing scale", my country will strive to create trade opportunities, stabilize key product trade, and stabilize foreign trade enterprises; in terms of "optimizing structure", we will promote implementation from two aspects: optimizing trade methods and optimizing the foreign trade development environment.

Expand cross-border e-commerce to help companies stabilize orders and expand markets

Helping enterprises stabilize orders and expand markets is an important step in promoting foreign trade to stabilize the scale and optimize the structure. In this regard, the Ministry of Commerce will promote the implementation of three aspects by successfully organizing a series of exhibitions such as the Canton Fair, facilitating business personnel exchanges, and continuously deepening trade innovation.

In terms of facilitating the exchange of business personnel, Wang Shouwen revealed that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other relevant departments are promoting relevant countries to facilitate the application of visas for Chinese enterprises, and our side also facilitates the application of visas for foreign enterprises in China. It is particularly worth mentioning that my country supports the practice of replacing visas with APEC business travel cards, and virtual visa cards will allow entry on May 1. At the same time, relevant domestic departments are further studying and optimizing remote detection measures to provide convenience for business personnel to visit China. It is reported that at present, the recovery rate of my country's international flights has reached nearly 30% compared with that before the epidemic.

In terms of continuously deepening trade innovation, the Ministry of Commerce is preparing to solidly promote the construction of a cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone, carry out brand training, rule and standard construction, and high-quality development of overseas warehouses. According to Li Xingqian, director of the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce, in the first quarter, my country's cross-border e-commerce continued to maintain a rapid growth momentum. Develop "cross-border e-commerce + industrial belt". Relying on my country's 165 cross-border e-commerce comprehensive test areas, combined with the industrial endowment and location advantages of various regions, promote more local specialty products to better enter the international market. At the same time, build an online comprehensive service platform, "Let enterprises run less errands and let data run more".

The weighted average interest rate of corporate loans has dropped "real money" to help foreign trade companies

The stable development of foreign trade is also inseparable from the strong support of finance. Our country adopts to reduce the financing cost of the real economy, and "real money" helps the development of foreign trade enterprises.

According to Jin Zhongxia, director of the International Department of the People's Bank of my country, in 2022, the weighted average interest rate of corporate loans in my country will drop by 34 basis points year-on-year to only 4.17%, which is a relatively low level in history. In addition, guide financial institutions to increase support for small and micro enterprises and private foreign trade enterprises. As of the end of 2022, the balance of inclusive small and micro loans will increase by 24% year-on-year, reaching 24 trillion yuan. At the same time, guide financial institutions to provide foreign trade enterprises with exchange rate risk management services, and reduce or exempt foreign exchange transaction fees related to banks serving small, medium and micro enterprises. In the whole of last year, the hedging ratio of enterprises increased by 2.4 percentage points compared with the previous year, reaching 24%. The ability of small, medium and micro enterprises to avoid the risk of exchange rate fluctuations has been further improved. The People's Bank of China has continued to optimize the RMB settlement environment for cross-border trade and improve the level of cross-border trade facilitation. "In the whole of last year, the scale of cross-border RMB settlement in goods trade increased by 37% year-on-year, accounting for 19%, an increase of 2.2 percentage points compared with 2021." Jin Zhongxia said.

Structural Transformation Processing Trade Transfers from Coastal Areas to Midwest and Northeast Areas

Last year, the Central Economic Work Conference proposed to improve the level of processing trade. Under the current situation of changes in the industrial structure, my country's processing trade concentration area has also shifted from the original coastal areas to the Midwest and Northeast.

According to Wang Shouwen, at present, the proportion of my country's central, western and northeastern regions in the country's processing trade has increased significantly. In 2022, the proportion of processing trade in the central, western and northeastern regions of the country's processing trade has reached 29.4%. In 2017, it was only about 22%. The mobile phone industry base in an airport area in Zhengzhou, Henan, has an annual output value of more than 320 billion yuan; Chongqing has built the world's largest notebook computer production base, and the output of notebook computers reached 74 million units last year; Sichuan, Chengdu, Anhui, and Hefei have established comparative The large-scale smart manufacturing and processing trade industries in integrated circuits have also created a large number of jobs. The next step is to continue to support the transfer of processing trade to the Midwest and Northeast regions on the existing basis. In the next step, the state will identify the second batch of national processing trade industrial parks, organize industrial docking in the central and western regions, northeast regions and coastal regions, and promote the transfer, transformation and upgrading of processing trade.

Source: China Net