source: China News Network
original title: Overseas online review: Although the epidemic is dangerous, its impact on China's foreign trade is limited source: overseas network
Xinguan pneumonia epidemic all of a sudden, it increased the downward pressure on the domestic economy. How will the epidemic affect China's economy? What means and measures can China take to reduce the impact of the epidemic on the economy? In order to dispel doubts, overseas network plans to launch a series of comments on "China's economy under the epidemic". This is the second article
since the outbreak of Xinguan pneumonia, China has faced major challenges in stabilizing its foreign trade due to the delayed start-up of factories, the obstruction of logistics, and the restrictive measures taken by some countries and regions on the movement of people and goods
of course, the impact of the epidemic on China's foreign trade depends on the situation of prevention and control. If the epidemic can turn a corner in February and continue to improve, and win the first battle in March, with enterprises in different industries and regions returning to work one after another, the impact of the epidemic on China's foreign trade will be temporary and limited
this judgment is mainly based on the following three reasons: first, from the time point of view, since the Christmas and new year consumption peak season in western countries has just passed, the first quarter itself is the off-season of foreign demand. At the same time, the first quarter coincided with China's Spring Festival holiday. Therefore, from the export data over the years, the growth rate in the first quarter was low
Second, order transfer may not happen in the short term. Although Chinese foreign trade enterprises are now facing the dilemma of delayed commencement and on-time delivery, it is difficult for suppliers in other countries to quickly increase production capacity in the short term. As long as relevant enterprises maintain good customer relations in the short term, there will be no irreversible transfer of orders. Once production resumes in the past, the order loss in the first quarter can be repaired
Third, as a serious area of the epidemic, foreign trade enterprises in Hubei province suffered the most serious damage. However, since Hubei's foreign trade accounts for a low proportion of China's foreign trade (1.25% in 2019), it will not have a great impact on China's foreign trade
at present, the domestic and foreign economic basic conditions for the development of foreign trade have undergone fundamental changes. The competitive advantage of foreign trade must change from factor driven cost and price competitive advantage to innovation driven comprehensive competitive advantage. Technology, brand, quality, service and standard have become the core elements of competition. China has a huge market with a population of 1.4 billion, the world's leading ICT enterprises and digital platform enterprises supporting the development of digital economy, the most hardworking working people in the world who yearn for a better life, science and engineering students and engineers several times that of the United States, the most efficient infrastructure and the most complete industrial system in the world, these fundamentals are the basic source of consolidating and creating competitive advantages in foreign trade
the strong support of economic fundamentals has laid the foundation for the high-quality development of China's foreign trade in 2019, under the severe situation of transformation pressure inside and US tariff stick outside, China's foreign trade still achieved a contrarian growth of 3.4% and reached a record high. At the same time, quality change, efficiency change and power change are also advancing steadily. Private enterprises surpassed foreign-invested enterprises for the first time and became the largest foreign trade entity in China, which fully reflects the improvement of Chinese capital and the international competitiveness of Chinese enterprises. The proportion of general trade with longer industrial chain and higher added value continued to increase to 59%, indicating that the level of independent production technology relied on by China's foreign trade continues to improve, and the position of independent brands in the international market continues to rise. The export of high-quality, high-tech and high value-added goods increased strongly. Among them, the export of new energy vehicles, integrated circuits, photovoltaic, communication, electric power, medical devices and other goods achieved rapid growth, and the export of mechanical and electrical products accounted for 58.4% of the total export. At the same time, the rapid growth of new trade formats such as cross-border e-commerce and market procurement trade has provided new impetus for the growth of China's foreign trade
under the background of intertwined internal and external complex challenges, China's foreign trade can maintain a stable operation trend in 2019 as a whole, which is inseparable from the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee and the timely introduction and effective implementation of various "stabilizing foreign trade" policies and measures at present, the epidemic has brought great pressure to foreign trade enterprises. From relevant ministries and commissions to local governments, they are acting quickly and doing their best to help enterprises reduce losses and tide over difficulties. In addition to the above short-term response measures, the dividend of "stabilizing foreign trade" policy is also reflected in two aspects: first, the policy effect of tax reduction and fee reduction in 2019 will continue to play a role in 2020, striving for more development space for enterprises; Second, the continuous promotion of the reform of "release, management and service" and various measures to improve the business environment will further reduce various institutional costs for Chinese enterprises to participate in globalization. According to the 2020 business environment report of the world bank, China's business environment ranked 31st among the 190 economies in the world in 2019, a significant increase of 15 places over 2018. It ranked among the top 10 in the world in terms of the improvement of business environment for two consecutive years. It is also the economy with the most regulatory reforms in East Asia and the Pacific. Among them, China's international ranking of cross-border trade indicators rose from 65th to 56th, surpassing Japan's ranking in the project for the first time
the healthy development of China's foreign trade lies not only in the adjustment of foreign trade structure and driving force, but also in the structural adjustment and diversified expansion of domestic and foreign markets on the one hand, the importance of external markets continues to decline. In 2006, China's dependence on trade in goods reached a historical high of 65%, of which the dependence on exports was as high as 35%. Since then, it has continued to decline to less than 33% in 2019, of which the export dependence has decreased to less than 18%. The main reason for the decline is that China is consuming more goods produced by itself. Moreover, China's annual import volume has exceeded US $2 trillion for two consecutive years, and the importance of the Chinese market is almost the same as that of the United States; On the other hand, the potential of market diversification is huge, and the "circle of friends" of foreign trade continues to expand. With the rise of emerging markets and developing countries, especially the joint construction of the "the Belt and Road" has laid a foundation for China to explore new markets and create new demand, and the trade potential between China and relevant countries is continuously being released. In 2019, the import and export of China and the countries related to the "the Belt and Road" increased by 10.8%, 7.4 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of foreign trade, and the proportion increased by 2 percentage points to 29.4%; Imports and exports to ASEAN, Latin America and Africa increased by 14.1%, 8% and 6.8% respectively. Among them, ASEAN has replaced the United States as China's second largest trading partner
(Zhu Caihua, deputy director of the Foreign Trade Institute of the Institute of international trade and economic cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce and author of the think tank of overseas network)