Dongguan Jinxin Logistics

This month, China's foreign trade experienced its worst April since the financial crisis in 2011. Both imports and exports fell, with exports and imports falling year-on-year respectively, dragging down the overall decline in imports and exports. Since the financial crisis, in addition to the decline in imports and exports in both years, there has only been a double decline in both years due to the arbitrage trade in the previous year that pushed up the base. Since the beginning of this year, first, the monthly import and export growth rates in the first quarter have fluctuated significantly, mainly because the export growth rate has fluctuated up and down, and the import decline has continued to fall. Then, monthly import and export have continued to decline, lowering the overall growth rate, which is consistent with the annual growth rate. Growth targets are getting further and further away. So, who is continuing to drag down China’s imports and exports?
We noticed that the decline in volume and price of ten imported commodities dragged down the monthly import value by nearly 1 percentage point.
The reason why imports are still slowing down is relatively simple. It is mainly due to the double drag of falling volume and price of imported goods. On the one hand, commodity prices in the global market are still at low levels; on the other hand, the slowdown in domestic economic growth has reduced demand for imports. In the first quarter of this year, my country’s import prices of iron ore, crude oil, refined oil and other commodities fell by about 10%, and the import prices of coal and soybeans also fell by about 1%. In the first quarter of this year, the import prices of the above-mentioned commodities continued to decline, with iron ore falling, crude oil falling, and refined oil falling. Prices have fallen, coal has fallen, and soybeans have fallen. At present, it seems that this momentum is difficult to significantly improve. From the perspective of import volume, among the above-mentioned commodities in March, except for crude oil import volume which maintained a single-digit growth, the import volume of coal, refined oil and soybeans continued the downward trend in the first quarter, with a decrease of ,, and iron ore import volume. The shift from growth in the first quarter to decline made the overall decline in import value in the month worse. At the same time, imports of unwrought copper and copper materials, solid waste, steel, logs and sawn timber, rubber and other commodities have also shown a downward trend in volume and price. It is estimated that the decline in the import value of the above-mentioned commodities reduced the overall decline in my country's imports in the month by 1 percentage point.
The decline in exports to the eight major markets dragged down the monthly export value by 10%. The continuous decline in exports is due to the fact that the external environment has not improved and the competitive advantage of export products has weakened, which has dragged down export growth and slowed down again. Exports depend on external demand. If there is no market demand, no matter how high-quality and cheap the product is, there will be no place for it. In the first quarter of this year, mainland China's exports to Hong Kong, Japan, Russia and other markets declined, and exports to the above-mentioned markets continued to decline in February. However, my country's exports to the EU, ASEAN, South Korea, India, Brazil and other markets still showed growth in the first quarter, but turned to decline in March. It is estimated that the decline in exports to these eight major markets reduced the overall decline in monthly exports by 1 percentage point. But we also see that while mainland China's exports to markets such as the United States, Taiwan, Australia and South Africa grew in the first quarter, monthly exports continued to maintain growth, with growth rates of , , , and .
Fortunately, the export product structure shows signs of optimization, and the export of some high value-added products has good growth momentum. Weak external demand coupled with the passive appreciation of the RMB exchange rate led to a large decline in exports of some traditional labor-intensive products with low added value in my country in March. The export value of textiles, clothing, shoes, plastic products and luggage turned from growth in the first quarter to decline. Among them The export value of textiles, clothing and shoes dropped by double digits, and the export value of automatic data processing equipment and its components, mainly laptop computers, also declined. But at the same time, the export of high value-added and high-tech products such as mobile phones, ships, and lamps has increased significantly, and the export value has increased by , and respectively.
Shortly after the foreign trade data for the month were released, the State Council issued "Several Opinions on Accelerating the Cultivation of New Advantages in Foreign Trade Competition." As early as the "Report" of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the country proposed to focus on cultivating new advantages in open economic development. In the decision of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, it once again proposed to accelerate the cultivation of new advantages in participating in and leading international economic cooperation and competition. At this year's Two Sessions, Premier Li Keqiang's government work report further clarified the need to implement policies and measures to cultivate new advantages in foreign trade competition. The author believes that the opinions issued this time are not only a continuation of the previous series of policies and measures by the State Council to support the stable growth of foreign trade, but also propose a more specific, detailed and more operable work plan for the future development of my country's foreign trade. Among the highlights, in addition to comprehensively improving the level of economic and trade cooperation with countries along the Belt and Road in line with the national strategy, there are also original innovations in corporate science and technology, business model innovation, trade format innovation, innovation in foreign cooperation methods, utilization of foreign investment management systems and Use a series of innovation drivers such as innovation in foreign exchange reserve methods to promote foreign trade growth.
Not only that, in this short period of time this month, the State Council also issued a series of policies such as "Opinions on Vigorously Developing E-Commerce and Accelerating the Cultivation of New Economic Power", "Made in China", "On the Key Points of Deepening Economic System Reform in 2020" Work Opinions", "Guiding Opinions on Promoting International Cooperation in Production Capacity and Equipment Manufacturing" and other national-level policies to support the transformation and optimization of domestic industries and improve the quality and efficiency of the economy.
If Chinese enterprises want to participate in and lead international economic cooperation and gain an advantage in international competition, they must seize the favorable opportunities of this round of global industrial structural adjustment and comprehensive domestic deepening of reforms, work hard to practice their internal skills, and achieve the goal of breaking out of a chrysalis and becoming a butterfly. of transformation. Only when the status of Chinese enterprises and Chinese products on the international stage continues to increase, can China truly complete its transformation from a major trading country to a powerful trading country.