The Foreign Trade Environment is Gathering New Vitality

On the other side of the scale of foreign trade and emerging markets to achieve breakthrough results, there are also some new problems appear.

At a press conference on import and export in the first half of 2023 held by the State Council Information Office, some media asked: the growth rate of foreign trade in the past two months has seen a significant drop, and exports have seen negative growth, how does the government view this change?

Customs data show that the monthly data in the last two months in imports and exports have slowed down to varying degrees.In May, the total value of imports and exports in the month was 3.45 trillion yuan, up 0.5% year-on-year. Among them, the total value of exports was 1.95 trillion yuan, down 0.8%; the total value of imports was 1.50 trillion yuan, up 2.3%.

Into June, the total value of imports and exports growth rate in this year for the first time from positive to negative. The total value of imports and exports in the month of 3.49 trillion yuan, down 6% year-on-year, down 6.5 percentage points from the previous month. Among them, the total value of exports 1.99 trillion yuan, down 8.3% year-on-year, down 7.5 percentage points from the previous month; the total value of imports 1.50 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decline of 2.6%, down 4.9 percentage points from the previous month.

At a press conference at the State Council Information Office on July 14, Lv Daliang, spokesman for the General Administration of Customs and director of the Department of Statistics and Analysis, said he was concerned about the recent changes in the year-on-year growth rate of foreign trade, and also saw some voices on the Internet expressing concern.

"In the first half of this year, foreign trade imports and exports were stable and in line with expectations. We believe that the current development of China’s foreign trade is generally stable, year-on-year seems to go ’slow’ a little bit, but the ring is a step by step steady march, the second quarter ring growth, the recent two consecutive months of the ring is also growth, stable development is supported."

In the July 19 press conference at the State Council Information Office, Li Xingqian, director of the Department of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Commerce, gave a specific analysis of the reasons for the fluctuations in foreign trade data.

First, the overall external demand continues to be weak. Mainly developed countries are still adopting austerity policies to deal with high inflation, part of the emerging market exchange rate fluctuations, foreign exchange reserves, inhibit the demand for imports.

Second, the electronic information industry is still in a cyclical downturn. Although consumer electronics products are our advantageous export products, but there is an "Olympic cycle" in this field, we are still in the cycle of the trough. Affected by this, accounting for more than 30% of China’s exports of computers, integrated circuits, cell phones and other products, the export growth rate of double-digit decline.

Third, lies in the same period last year, the import and export base has been significantly raised. May-June last year, China’s average monthly import and export value is 3.57 trillion yuan, 430 billion yuan higher than the first four months of this year’s monthly average of 3.14 trillion yuan. Relatively speaking, it highlights the lowering trend.

Bank of China Securities Global Chief Economist Guan Tao believes that in March and April China’s exports grew faster, mainly last year under the impact of the epidemic some of the backlog of orders in the early part of the year focused on the release, but into May and June after the export growth rate turned negative, reflecting the monetary tightening of the central banks in Europe and the United States caused by the slowdown in the growth of the global economy.

However, some new international environmental trends are contributing to the subsequent improvement of the foreign trade environment.

"Recently, we have been tracking and researching key foreign trade industries and enterprises, and noticed some positive changes, such as cross-border exchanges in further smooth, and the number of international flights is also steadily recovering; the proportion of enterprises with flat or growing new orders is picking up; electronics and information, which are under greater pressure, and imports of intermediates are on the upswing, which means that the second half of the year may usher in a turnaround. " Li Xingqian said.

Accompanied by the formation of policy synergy between various departments and a series of important exhibitions such as the Expo, Canton Fair, Trade Fair, I believe that the second half of the foreign trade environment will usher in new vitality.