On March 7, data from the official website of the General Administration of Customs showed that in the first two months of this year, the total value of China's trade in goods was 5.44 trillion yuan, an increase of 32.2% over the same period last year. Of this total, the export was 3.06 trillion yuan, up by 50.1%; Imports reached 2.38 trillion yuan, an increase of 14.5%; The trade surplus was 675.86 billion yuan, compared with a deficit of 43.3 billion yuan in the same period last year.
In the first two months, foreign trade achieved a "good start", which made a good start for the whole year. The reason, Fu Yifu, a senior researcher at the Suning Institute of Finance, told the Securities Daily reporter that this first benefited from the positive results achieved in the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic in China, taking the lead in promoting the resumption of work and production of enterprises, and the introduction of a series of favorable policies continue to release dividends, especially in the case of the overseas epidemic situation is still severe and the production capacity is seriously insufficient. With the high efficiency of epidemic prevention and control and a complete and complete industrial system, China has well undertaken production orders from all over the world, making up for the gap in overseas production capacity, and then helping China's exports continue to rise. At the same time, this year's local Chinese New Year initiative so that many foreign trade enterprises still maintain production during the Spring Festival, in the past may be able to deliver orders after the year, this year has achieved normal delivery, and then superimposed last year's low base effect, "good start" is reasonable. Taken together, this fully demonstrates the strong resilience and comprehensive competitiveness of our economy, has made great contributions to the process of world economic recovery, and has further consolidated our position in the global trade pattern, showing the image of a responsible major country.
"The import and export data in the first two months showed bright performance, continuing the recovery trend in the second half of last year." Liu Xiangdong, vice minister of the Economic research Department of the China International Economic Exchange Center, said in an interview with the Securities Daily reporter that on the one hand, it is affected by the low base, and on the other hand, it reflects that China's economic recovery is better and the world economy is more closely connected, and it is shifting from the import and export of epidemic prevention materials to normal trade, that is, the external demand market is recovering. For example, exports of mechanical and electrical products increased by 54.1% year-on-year, even exceeding the growth rate of textile exports including masks (50.2%). In addition, the import and export of general trade recovered, and the trade structure showed an optimization direction.
It is worth mentioning that customs statistics show that in the first two months, China's imports and exports to ASEAN, the European Union, the United States and Japan were 786.2 billion yuan, 779.04 billion yuan, 716.37 billion yuan and 349.23 billion yuan, respectively, an increase of 32.9%, 39.8%, 69.6% and 27.4%, and China's economic and trade exchanges with the above economies are more close. In the same period, the import and export of China and countries along the Belt and Road totaled 1.62 trillion yuan, an increase of 23.9%.
Fu Yifu believes that for foreign trade, the first two months of the year should be the off-season, but this year has shown a scene of off-season is not light, further continuing the good situation since June last year, including China's imports and exports to ASEAN, the European Union, the United States, Japan and other major trading partners have achieved considerable growth. In particular, the trade with the countries and regions along the Belt and Road continues to maintain a momentum of rapid development, which not only promotes the diversified development of China's foreign trade, but also enables the countries and regions along the Belt and Road to more actively integrate into the international division of labor system led by China, and share the development dividend of China's economy through multi-faceted cooperation.
Looking forward to the future market, Liu Xiangdong believes that China's foreign trade imports and exports will continue to recover faster with the recovery of external demand, but considering the impact of the base problem, the growth rate of foreign trade imports and exports may be flat. At the same time, considering that there is still a large uncertainty in external demand, especially the gradual resumption of production in some countries will occupy a certain export market in China, to this end, it is still necessary to further optimize the structure of foreign trade, implement the strategy of foreign trade power, including the optimal import and export, trade industry integration and cross-border e-commerce action plans, in order to promote the high-quality development of foreign trade.
In Pay Yifu's view, blacksmithing also needs its own hard, stable foreign trade in the future needs to work from two aspects: On the one hand, we should start from promoting the higher quality development of foreign trade, and strive to optimize the trade structure, including adapting to the rapid development of the Internet, big data, and intelligent manufacturing, vigorously implementing the strategy of optimizing foreign trade imports and exports, the strategy of upgrading circulation, and the strategy of integrating domestic and foreign markets, and accelerating the development of new trade formats such as foreign trade integrated service enterprises, cross-border e-commerce, overseas warehouses, and market procurement models. Improve the efficiency of traditional trade, promote trade facilitation, and vigorously support through policy guidance, fiscal and tax support, innovation subsidies and other measures to encourage enterprises to actively implement the "going global" strategy.
On the other hand, we should give full play to the role and advantages of free trade zones, grant them greater autonomy in reform, and promote the construction of open platforms such as border economic cooperation zones and cross-border economic cooperation zones. In particular, we should continue to tap the markets of countries along the Belt and Road, partner countries with free trade agreements with China, and countries with less severe epidemics. Expand new foreign trade growth points, and continue to promote the exploration and trial of institutional innovation in the free trade area, and create an international, law-based and fair business environment.
(Article source: Securities Daily)