China's foreign trade situation continues to improve

With the recurrence of the epidemic and the normalization of epidemic prevention activities, the economic activities of all countries have been greatly affected, and the prospects of world economic recovery are likely to be lower than expected. However, it is worth noting that, despite the severe challenges, the fundamentals of China's foreign trade remain unchanged and clearly exceed expectations. According to the data released by SIPG, the container throughput of Shanghai Port will reach 43.5 million teU in 2020, hitting a new record high, ranking first in the world for 11 consecutive years, fully demonstrating the strength of China's foreign trade.

The recovery of foreign trade is stable and better than expected

In 2020, China's foreign trade is significantly better than expected at the beginning of the year. According to the "Report on China's Foreign Trade Situation" released by the Ministry of Commerce in the autumn and data released by the General Administration of Customs, after a sharp decline in January and February 2020 due to the impact of the epidemic, the import and export volume began to pick up in March and showed positive growth in June. After entering the third quarter of 2020, the scale of foreign trade expanded significantly, and the overall scale of import and export in the first three quarters reached a new high in the same period. By November last year, imports and exports totaled 29.04 trillion yuan, up 1.8 percent year on year, turning positive for the first time.

The two highlights of China's foreign trade this year are the sharp increase in exports and the increase in the share of imports and exports in global trade. Exports grew much faster than initially expected, rising 2.5 per cent in dollar terms in the first 11 months of 2020 from a year earlier, and 21.1 per cent in November, the fastest pace since 1981. Against the backdrop of the continuous global economic downturn, the reasons for China's foreign trade to achieve such a "brilliant record" are mainly from two aspects. On the one hand, some countries and regions have stopped production. China is the only major trade object that can maintain normal production activities, and export substitution effect plays an important role. On the other hand, the demand for epidemic prevention materials and daily necessities soared during the epidemic prevention and control period.

In terms of the proportion of global trade, China's import and export volume accounts for a further increase in the proportion of global trade. China's export growth in the first half of last year was 7.8 percentage points higher than the global average, and its international market share rose more than 1 percentage point from the same period in 2019, setting a record for the same period in history, according to the Ministry of Commerce. In December 2020, the head of the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce made a speech, saying that China's import share in the world increased by 0.8 percentage points, making an important contribution to world economic and trade cooperation.

Large international trade and economic exhibitions have yielded fruitful results

Services trade will "boost confidence". The China International Trade in Services Fair will be held at the National Convention Center in Beijing in September 2020. With the theme of "Global Service, Mutual Sharing", the exhibition attracted 22,000 enterprises and institutions from 148 countries and regions through both online and offline platforms. 190 forums and negotiation activities were held, covering all 12 fields of service trade, and 240 agreements and agreements were signed. The exhibition is the first large-scale international trade and economic exhibition held by China in the face of COVID-19. It has boosted the confidence of the service trade market, demonstrated China's willingness to open wider to the rest of the world and deepen cooperation, and made important contributions to promoting scientific and technological innovation and jointly leading the world economic recovery.

Canton Fair "shine". The 128th China Import and Export Fair was successfully held on both online and offline platforms in October 2020, attracting buyers from 226 countries and regions and 26,000 domestic and foreign exhibitors. The rapid emergence of new products and new technologies at the Canton Fair has played a driving and demonstration role in promoting the high-quality development of foreign trade. The application volume of intelligent products has increased by 20,000 pieces compared with that of the previous session. The construction of Internet platform and network marketing system have been further improved.

The CiIE will become better and better. In November 2020, the third China International Import Expo (CIIE) was held in Shanghai. The expo also set up two platforms, both online and offline, and for the first time set up new exhibition areas such as public health and non-bank finance. As in epidemic prevention and control a permanent basis under the background of China's largest, most country of exhibition, the international economic and trade event, as of late November 7, the third into the exposition of a total of 64 countries and regions to attract 674 exhibitors, 1351 purchasers attending, 861 items cooperation intention, fully demonstrated the vitality, the Chinese market reflects the goals for China's economy provide the international business community and the high praise.

Promising development prospect

First, institutional advantages ensure sustained economic growth in China. Against the backdrop of a difficult global economic recovery, the Chinese economy has remained resilient and dynamic. Its institutional strength and efficient governance capacity have laid the foundation for higher-quality development and higher-level opening-up. This year's "opinion on promoting the implementation of the innovation and development of foreign trade, the foreign investment access list (negative) special management measures", "free trade area of foreign investment access list (negative) special management measures, such as file shows the system innovation in China to create a good business environment determination and the will, the construction of free trade port in hainan, regional comprehensive economic partnership agreements signed, and central Europe - the successful conclusion of negotiations for China to deepen cooperation with trade partners to provide the system guarantee.

Second, the stability of the industrial chain has been gradually improved. Global value chains and industrial chains have been greatly impacted by the COVID-19 epidemic and are facing the risk of rupture and restructuring, which has also exposed the deficiencies in the layout and structure of China's industrial chain. Under the general trend of global value chain tending to shrink and localize, "Made in China" faces many difficulties, but at the same time, it also welcomes important opportunities of industrial chain upgrading and high-quality development. As the world's only with the United Nations industrial classification of all kinds of industrial countries, China in perfect industrial structure, promote core parts localization, self-independence and enhance production stability and the ability to resist risk, etc, have congenital advantage, huge domestic consumer market and an open business environment is also to build the new development of international and domestic dual cycle pattern, created the conditions for the "made in China" to the value chain low-end to high-end climbing provides important development opportunities.

Third, the digital economy industry has gained vitality. Due to the increased possibility of COVID-19 as a regular epidemic, people's lifestyle and consumption patterns have changed, global trade in goods continues to shrink, and traditional service trade industries have been severely impacted. 1 to 9, 2020, in the travel of our country, building, transportation, the three major traditional service trade import and export amounted to 1.7172 trillion yuan, down 21.1%, but at the same time, with cloud computing, artificial intelligence and 5 g of knowledge intensive service industry is emerging at this time, 1 to 9 month's total trade volume of 1.49308 trillion yuan, increased by 9.0%, 44% of trade in services. Services such as medical care, education and telecommuting have performed well during the epidemic. They have broken through the limitations of space and time, met the needs of consumers in a more humane way, and provided unprecedented opportunities for traditional enterprises to transform and upgrade their industries, helping to create new economic growth points. At the same time, the development of digital information technology is also conducive to breaking through the policy barriers and regulatory bottlenecks in the development of the service industry, providing technical support for China's further opening of the service industry market.

(Liu Bin, National Institute of Opening-up, University of International Business and Economics)

Editor in charge: Ge Yan

This article refer to china trade news