the Information Office of the State Council held a press conference at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, April 13, 2021. Li Kuiwen, spokesman of the General Administration of customs and director of the Department of statistics and analysis, was invited to introduce the import and export situation in the first quarter of 2021 and answer reporters' questions
Li Kuiwen, spokesman of the General Administration of customs and director of the Department of statistical analysis (Photo by Jiao Fei)
Xinhua reporter:
director Li just mentioned that the growth rate in the first quarter was still very fast. Do you think this growth rate is expected to be maintained in the follow-up outlook? Or what will be the trend? Second, Premier Li Keqiang mentioned at several recent symposiums that a comprehensive and objective analysis of the economic situation should be based on both the year-on-year and the month on month. From the perspective of foreign trade in the first quarter of this year, what is the month on month comparison? And what is the comparison with 2019? The last one Question: what efforts will the General Administration of Customs make to ensure the smooth flow of foreign trade supply chain, industrial chain and logistics chain? Thank you
Li Kuiwen:
let me answer your first question first. Indeed, as you said just now, the growth rate of China's foreign trade import and export in the first quarter was relatively large. Despite the low base due to the impact of the COVID-19 last year, compared with the same period in 2019, the growth rate of import and export in the first quarter of this year still reached 20.5%. China's foreign trade continued to maintain the momentum of continuous improvement since the second half of last year, making a good start for the"steady increase in quantity and quality" of foreign trade this year, which is the result of the comprehensive action of various factors. Specifically, there are several aspects:
first, the restorative growth of global economy and trade is conducive to the growth of China's foreign trade. With the gradual expansion of vaccination coverage for COVID-19, the global economic recovery has shown a good momentum. Since this year, the global manufacturing industry has continued to improve. In March, the manufacturing PMI of the United States, the euro zone and Japan rose to 64.7, 62.5 and 52.7 respectively, reaching new highs since December 1983, June 1997 and November 2018 respectively, which will drive the rapid growth of China's exports. According to the customs data, in the first quarter, China's exports to the EU, the United States and Japan increased by 48.5% and contributed 44.2% to the overall export growth. We also note that major international economic organizations have recently raised their growth expectations of economic and trade indicators. For example, the international monetary fund raised its global economic growth forecast for 2021 from 5.5% in January to 6%; The world trade organization also raised the growth forecast of Global trade in goods from 7.2% in the previous period to 8%. This also shows the positive signal of the recovery of global economic and trade activities and the enhancement of market confidence
Second, the sustained and stable recovery of China's economy has also promoted the development of foreign trade. Since this year, China's industry and consumption have continued to grow in the macro range. According to the relevant data released by the National Bureau of statistics, the manufacturing purchasing manager index has been above the boom and bust line for 13 consecutive months. The production index and new order index of most industries are above the critical point, and the manufacturing boom has further rebounded, which has driven the rapid growth of imports of integrated circuits, energy resources and other products. In the first quarter, China imported 155.27 billion integrated circuits, an increase of 33.6%; 139 million tons of crude oil, an increase of 9.5%; Copper was 1.436 million tons, an increase of 11.7%
China's policies and measures for coordinating epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development are powerful and effective. While promoting the steady recovery of domestic production and consumption, they also provide strong support for the sustained and stable operation of foreign trade. Especially during the Spring Festival holiday this year, most manufacturing employees chose to "celebrate the new year on the spot", and many enterprises in Guangdong, Zhejiang and other major foreign trade provinces produced "non-stop", which boosted domestic industrial production to a certain extent and shortened the delivery cycle of foreign trade orders. In March, China's imports and exports increased by 25% month on month, of which exports and imports increased by 16.8% and 35.2% month on month respectively
Third, the rapid rise in commodity prices has also boosted import growth. Under the influence of the loose monetary policy of the United States and other major economies, global commodity prices continued to rise. As of March, the import price of iron ore rose year-on-year for seven consecutive months, the import price of copper ore rose year-on-year for 11 consecutive months, and the import price of soybeans rose year-on-year for four consecutive months. In the first quarter, the import price of the above products rose by 53.5%, 28% and 11.1% year-on-year respectively. Crude oil import prices also ended the year-on-year decline trend for 12 consecutive months, with a year-on-year increase of 1.6% in March
I also make a response to your foreign trade trend expectation and month on month situation
since the third quarter of last year, China's foreign trade has maintained positive year-on-year growth for three consecutive quarters. I think this trend is expected to be maintained in the coming period, but the specific trend needs further observation. At present, the global COVID-19 has been repeated, and there are still many unstable and uncertain factors in the international situation. For example, sudden factors such as the recent "blockage" of the Suez canal have had a short-term impact on the timeliness of international trade logistics. In addition, in the second quarter of last year, China's import and export increased by 16.8% month on month compared with the first quarter of last year. Last year, this base increased significantly, which objectively brought challenges to the growth of foreign trade in the second quarter of this year. On the whole, there are many favorable factors for China's foreign trade in the coming period, but there are also many external challenges, and the stable growth of foreign trade still has a long way to go
you've just paid attention to the situation about the month on month ratio, and here's a response
according to customs statistics, China's import and export increased by 29.2% year-on-year in the first quarter of this year, 25.3% and 20.5% respectively compared with the same period in 2018 and 2019. In addition, in the first quarter of this year, compared with the fourth quarter of last year, imports and exports decreased by 7.1%, of which exports decreased by 12.3% and imports increased by 0.1%. It should be noted that due to the traditional Spring Festival holiday in China in the first quarter, the scale of foreign trade import and export is often lower than that in the fourth quarter of last year, which is also normal. The data show that from 2016 to 2020, the import and export showed a double-digit month on month decline in the first quarter of this year. The month on month decline in the first quarter of this year was the smallest in recent years, which further confirmed the positive trend of China's foreign trade in the first quarter of this year. Thank you
source: guoxin.com