China’s foreign trade import and export “report card” in 2019 is released. Although world economic growth continued to slow down in 2019 and the domestic and international economic environment was complex and severe, China’s foreign trade still performed well.
Data from the General Administration of Customs show that my country’s total import and export value of goods trade in 2019 was 31.54 trillion yuan, an increase of 3.4% over 2018; for the first time, private enterprises became the largest foreign trade business entity. Among them, exports were 17.23 trillion yuan, an increase of 5%; imports were 14.31 trillion yuan, an increase of 1.6%; the trade surplus was 2.92 trillion yuan, an increase of 25.4%.
In 2019, my country’s foreign trade volume showed a trend of increasing quarter by quarter. Looking only at December, my country’s imports and exports reached 3.01 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.7%. The scale of foreign trade imports, exports, and imports in that month all hit monthly historical peaks.
“With the obvious increase in risk challenges at home and abroad, my country’s foreign trade import and export achieved steady growth in volume and steady improvement in quality in 2019.” Zou Zhiwu, deputy director of the General Administration of Customs, said, It is expected that my country’s foreign trade will continue to maintain an overall stable growth trend in 2020, and high-quality development will reach a new level.
Three highlights of the foreign trade “report card”
According to the customs The latest data released by the General Administration of Industry and Commerce on the 14th showed that China’s foreign trade competitiveness increased significantly in 2019, showing three major highlights.
First, the international market share of high value-added export products has expanded.
In 2019, China’s integrated circuit exports increased by 25.3% year-on-year, semiconductor device exports increased by 26.3%, solar cell exports increased by 47.5%, and metal processing machine tools increased by nearly 15%. During the same period, China’s exports of self-owned brand goods increased by 12%, and their proportion in total export value increased by 1.1 percentage points compared with 2018.
According to the latest WTO data, in the first 10 months of 2019, China’s exports performed best among the world’s top ten trading countries. From January to September, China’s mechanical and electrical products and labor-intensive products had the best global performance. Market share increased by 0.2 and 0.9 percentage points respectively.
Second, new progress has been made in exploring diversified markets.
In order to diversify risks, in 2019, while maintaining the market share of traditional trading partners such as the EU, ASEAN, and Japan, Chinese companies also increased their efforts to explore emerging markets and invested heavily in the “One Belt, One Road” initiative. The import and export of countries along the route, as well as Africa, Latin America and other regions increased by 10.8%, 6.8% and 8% respectively.
Thirdly, private enterprises have surpassed foreign companies for the first time to become China’s largest foreign trade entity.
In 2019, the total import and export value of private enterprises increased by 11.4% year-on-year, contributing 42.7% of China’s total foreign trade value, an increase of 3.1 percentage points from 2018, of which exports accounted for more than 50%.
“Last year, the number of foreign trade companies with actual import and export activities in our country reached 499,000. In particular, private companies with more flexible production and operations have released stronger foreign trade development vitality.” Zou Zhiwu gave an example. , in 2019, my country’s private enterprises surpassed foreign-invested enterprises for the first time to become the largest foreign trade entity, and their export share exceeded 50%.
Four aspects help foreign trade grow against the trend
“Based on preliminary analysis, my country is still expected to remain the largest country in global goods trade in 2019.” Zou Zhiwu said that if calculated in U.S. dollars, my country’s total import and export value would decline slightly, but exports would still be showing a positive growth of 0.5%. According to data from the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the first 10 months, my country’s exports performed best among the world’s top ten trading countries.
First of all, the stable performance of the domestic economy has laid a solid foundation for foreign trade growth. The latest data released by the National Bureau of Statistics shows that in the first 11 months of 2019, the added value of industries above designated size nationwide increased by 5.6% year-on-year, the total retail sales of consumer goods increased by 8% year-on-year, fixed asset investment increased by 5.2% year-on-year, and the annual GDP The value will still maintain rapid growth, and the growth rate will be significantly ahead of other major economies in the world.
Zou Zhiwu said that the basic trend of China’s economic stability and long-term improvement has not changed. The strong leadership of the party, the significant advantages of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, and the abundant material accumulated since the reform and opening up The technical foundation, as well as the ultra-large-scale market advantage and domestic demand potential are the main reasons for the stable growth of my country’s foreign trade.
Secondly, our country’s economy has strong resilience, potential and room for maneuver, and this resilience is also available in the field of foreign trade. At present, my country is the world’s largest manufacturing country, with a complete industrial system. The output of more than 220 industrial products ranks first in the world. The complete industrial categories and manufacturing foundation provide strong support for the development of foreign trade.
In addition, trade diversification has achieved remarkable results. In the words of Zou Zhiwu, deputy director of the General Administration of Customs, China’s trading partners are “all over the world and blooming in many places.” A more diversified market means that China’s foreign trade is more capable of withstanding pressure.
Once again, the effects of stabilizing foreign trade policies continue to be released. Since 2018, my country has introduced a series of policies and measures to stabilize foreign trade and foreign investment, and introduced an unprecedented tax reduction and fee reduction policy, which has effectively reduced the burden on enterprises.
Towards a new level of high-quality development
According to statistics, in 2019, the first-line enterprises in the national comprehensive bonded zones The total export value reached 2.6 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13%. The import and export growth rate of enterprises in the comprehensive bonded zone was 9.7 percentage points higher than the overall national growth rate.
The growth of foreign trade in the Comprehensive Bonded Zone is an epitome of my country’s foreign trade continuing to move towards high-quality development. From the perspective of trade structure, my country’s foreign trade import and export industrial chain is continuously extending to the two ends with higher added value. Among them, general trade import and export, which can better reflect the independent development capabilities of enterprises, increased by 5.6%, accounting for 59% of my country’s foreign trade, compared with 2018 An annual increase of 1.2 percentage points.
At the same time, my country’s foreign trade growth has stronger new momentum and the trade market has become more diversified. According to statistics, new business formats such as my country’s cross-border e-commerce continued to maintain a vigorous development trend in 2019, with imports and exports through the customs cross-border e-commerce management platform reaching 186.21 billion yuan, an increase of 38.3%. Imports and exports through market procurement reached 562.95 billion yuan, an increase of 19.7%. The two together contributed nearly 14% to the overall foreign trade growth.
More importantly, the international competitive advantage of my country’s foreign trade is constantly improving. It is reported that in 2019, the price index of my country’s export commodities rose by 2.8%, the price index of imported commodities rose by 1.4%, and the terms of trade index was 101.4, indicating that my country’s export of the same amount of commodities can be exchanged for more commodities, and the competitiveness of foreign trade has been further improved.
According to the latest WTO data, in the first nine months of 2019, my country’s mechanical and electrical products and labor-intensive products ranked first in the world. Market share increased by 0.2 and 0.9 percentage points respectively. The export of some self-owned brand products and some products with high added value maintained a good growth trend. For example, the export of integrated circuits increased by 25.3%, the export of semiconductor devices increased by 26.3%, the export of solar cells increased by 47.5%, and the export of metal processing machine tools increased by nearly 15%.
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