China’s foreign trade started smoothly (Rui Finance)

According to the data recently released by the General Administration of Customs, the import and export volume of China in February this year exceeded US$ 411.2 billion, up 1.3% year-on-year. At the press conference held by the State Council Information Office a few days ago, the relevant person in charge of the General Administration of Customs introduced that, according to the trend, the import and export of China’s foreign trade have obviously stabilized since February, and the last week of February has increased by more than 15% compared with the previous week. With the overall improvement of China’s economic situation, the momentum of the smooth start of foreign trade in the first two months is expected to be maintained.

The export situation is better than expected.

The data shows that in February, China’s import volume reached US$ 197.2 billion, up 4.2% year-on-year, ending the trend of declining growth rate for four consecutive months; In February, the export volume decreased by 1.3% year-on-year, but it was significantly narrower than that in the previous three months. "Overall, the start is stable and the trend is improving." Yu Jianhua, director of the General Administration of Customs, introduced the foreign trade development situation in the first two months of this year, saying, "In terms of scale, the total export value in the first two months reached a record high, with an increase of 0.9%, which was better than expected. The total value of imports and exports exceeds 6 trillion yuan, which is the second time in history. "

In terms of composition, China took the lead in resuming work and production during the epidemic period, and the export of epidemic prevention materials and "house economy" products increased substantially, raising the foreign trade base. "We have calculated that if the’ one-off factor’ is excluded, the import and export growth in the first two months of this year will exceed 10%." Yu Jianhua said.

To help foreign trade recover, the Customs has introduced a series of measures. According to Yu Jianhua, in terms of ensuring smooth flow, as of December last year, the overall customs clearance time for imports and exports nationwide was reduced by 67% and 92% respectively compared with 2017; In terms of cost reduction, the customs supports enterprises to enjoy various preferential tax policies, and last year alone, it reduced taxes and refunded taxes for foreign trade enterprises by 285 billion yuan; In terms of excellent service, we carried out the policy of "the Commissioner of Customs delivers the goods to the door", innovated the supervision mode of "putting the goods before inspection" and "green channel" for agricultural and food products, transferred 87 commodity codes out of the legal inspection catalogue, and continuously optimized the port business environment.

Yu Jianhua said that in view of the pain points and difficulties of enterprises, the customs will also study new policy measures in terms of unblocking import and export logistics, optimizing port business environment, reducing enterprise costs, and supporting the development of new formats, such as promoting the construction of smart customs and helping enterprises to make full use of free trade agreements such as RCEP.

"tailor-made" supervision of cross-border e-commerce

As one of the new formats of international trade development, cross-border e-commerce shows great vitality. Nowadays, more and more goods made in China enter the international consumer goods market through cross-border e-commerce.

Different from traditional trade, cross-border e-commerce presents the characteristics of fragmentation, quantification and informationization. The data shows that the number of import lists of cross-border e-commerce is 5-6 times of the number of goods declarations in the same period, and the average value of each order is less than three ten thousandths of the goods declarations. "In the process of supervision, we seized contraband such as controlled psychotropic drugs, articles infringing intellectual property rights, and’ exotic pets’. It should be said that these new situations have challenged the customs supervision work. " Sun Yuning, deputy director of the General Administration of Customs, said.

How to effectively supervise cross-border e-commerce? Sun Yuning said that the General Administration of Customs has introduced a customs clearance management system different from traditional trade, and created a customs supervision model suitable for the characteristics of cross-border e-commerce through classified management and "tailoring".

On the basis of the original "business-to-person (B2C)", the General Administration of Customs put forward the supervision policy of "business-to-business (B2B)" and "business-to-person (B2B2C)". In this process, we strengthened the empowerment of science and technology, developed and applied a unified version of cross-border e-commerce supervision information system, and realized the integrated management of transaction, payment, logistics and other related data. "At the same time, we comprehensively promote the paperless filing of cross-border e-commerce export overseas warehouses, and realize’ one place for filing, universal’. By the end of February, the number of cross-border e-commerce overseas warehouse enterprises registered with the customs had reached 1,713. " Sun Yuning said.

Promote stability, improve quality and have confidence

At present, global inflation is high and the growth of major economies is weak, which has a continuous impact on global trade. The WTO recently predicted that the global trade in goods was weak in the first quarter of this year, and it is expected to increase by only 1% for the whole year. The recent fluctuations in financial markets in some western countries have impacted the global trade environment, which is also an external challenge for China’s foreign trade to promote stability and improve quality.

"The challenges facing China’s foreign trade are short-term, cyclical and global; The opportunities ushered in by foreign trade development are long-term, structural and regional. " Cheng Shi, chief economist of ICBC International, believes that the global total demand is expected to increase with the impetus of economic growth and scientific and technological progress, and the globalization of service trade may become a breakthrough point for China’s foreign trade development.

Yu Jianhua introduced that in the first two months, more enterprises entered the foreign trade field, and the customs newly registered 46,000 foreign trade business entities, indicating that market confidence is accumulating and recovering. "In terms of orders, the proportion of new export orders increased continuously. In terms of new kinetic energy, the total export of electric vehicles, lithium batteries and solar cells increased by 60%. In terms of trade diversification, China’s import and export to countries along the Belt and Road increased by more than 10%, and its total import and export to other RCEP members increased by more than 3%. " Yu Jianhua said.

"On the whole, the foreign trade situation is still severe and complicated, but it also contains many opportunities." Yu Jianhua said, comparatively speaking, China’s competitive advantage is still obvious. With the overall improvement of China’s economic situation, the momentum of the smooth start of foreign trade in the first two months is expected to be maintained. This year, China is confident to achieve the goal of promoting stability and improving quality in foreign trade.

(Editor: Zhao Xinyue, Yue Hongbin)

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