Interpreting the First Quarterly Report of Foreign Trade from the Perspective of Quantity, Quality and Potential

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, April 12thTitle: Interpreting the First Quarterly Report of Foreign Trade from the Perspective of Quantity, Quality and Potential

Xinhua News Agency reporters Zou Duowei, Tang Ningning and Huang Yaoteng

The first quarterly report of foreign trade was released on the 12th. According to customs statistics, in the first quarter of 2024, the import and export scale of China’s goods trade exceeded 10 trillion yuan for the first time in the same period, and the growth rate of import and export reached a new high in six quarters. Among them, exports and imports increased by 4.9% and 5%, which were 4.1 and 2.3 percentage points higher than those in the fourth quarter of last year, respectively, which showed that China’s foreign trade started strongly and started well.

The momentum of "stable quantity" was effectively consolidated.

Data show that in the first quarter of this year, the total import and export value of China’s goods trade was 10.17 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5%. Especially in the case of data fluctuation in March, in the first quarter, China’s exports rose by 4.9% year-on-year, and imports increased by 5% year-on-year, exceeding market expectations.

Wang Lingxun, deputy director of the General Administration of Customs, said at the press conference held by the State Council Office on the same day that such achievements were made against the background that China’s economic fundamentals continued to improve and the vast number of foreign traders made great efforts to forge ahead and innovate. The high-quality development of China’s foreign trade has continuously taken new steps to push the import and export scale to a new level in the first quarter of this year.

As the world’s largest trader of goods, export is one of the main driving forces of China’s economic growth. From the double-digit growth in the first two months to the year-on-year decline in March, the slowdown in export growth has become the focus of attention.

Chen Hongna, an associate researcher in the Foreign Economic Research Department of the State Council Development Research Center, believes that understanding the export growth rate can’t be based solely on figures, but on the basis of a high base and still low external demand, China’s exports have not only achieved a reasonable growth in quantity, but also maintained the overall stability of the international market share, all of which benefited from China’s continuous adjustment and optimization in terms of growth momentum and product structure in combination with its own comparative advantages.

At the same time, since the beginning of this year, the accelerated growth of industrial production and the steady growth of household consumption have also driven the import of raw materials, key components and consumer goods. In the first quarter, the growth rate of China’s imports of integrated circuits, textiles and clothing, dried and fresh fruits and competitive bicycles all exceeded double digits. High-quality products from all over the world have entered China, giving consumers more and better choices and giving enterprises from all over the world more opportunities.

Wang Lingxun said that at present, global trade is showing signs of stabilization and improvement. The World Trade Organization (WTO) predicts that the global trade in goods will increase by 2.6% in 2024; According to the survey results of China Customs’ trade prosperity, the proportion of enterprises that reported the increase of export and import orders in March was significantly higher than that in the previous month. It is expected that China’s import and export will continue to improve in the second quarter, and it will basically remain in the growth channel in the first half of the year.

The characteristics of "quality improvement" continue to appear.

Positioning, assembly, testing … Entering Beihai Jixun Technology Co., Ltd., a brand-new ink cartridge product research and development line, technicians are carefully recording ink test data such as surface tension and conductivity. This enterprise, which mainly manufactures printing consumables, sells its products to the United States, Italy, France and other European and American regions, and its export value in the first quarter reached 130 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of over 30%.

As the main force of foreign trade, private enterprises that dare to fight and venture are the epitome of the vitality of generate, the main body of foreign trade in China.

"From the perspective of the number of business entities, almost 9 out of every 10 foreign trade enterprises with import and export records are private enterprises." Lv Daliang, director of the Statistics and Analysis Department of the General Administration of Customs, said that in the first quarter, the import and export scale of private enterprises accounted for 54.3% of China’s total foreign trade value, and the growth rate of exports and imports was 4.8 and 7.8 percentage points faster than the whole, and the status of stable foreign trade continued to consolidate.

Thanks to the complete industrial system and strong production capacity, high-tech and high value-added products are popular overseas, which is also a portrayal of China’s foreign trade development upgrading.

In the first quarter, the export of mechanical and electrical products including computers, automobiles and ships totaled 3.39 trillion yuan, up 6.8% year-on-year, accounting for 59.2% of the total export value, and the export of high-end equipment in the central region increased by 42.6%, indicating that the competitive advantage of "Made in China" continued to be consolidated.

The "excellent" foreign trade structure is also reflected in the "wide" market expansion. In the first quarter, China’s import and export to countries that jointly built the "Belt and Road" increased by 5.5%, 0.5 percentage points higher than the overall; Both imports and exports to Latin America and Central Asia achieved double-digit growth.

New kinetic energy stores potential cohesion

The import and export of foreign trade involves both domestic and international markets. The more complex, severe and uncertain the external environment is, the more it needs new policies, new formats and new platforms.

This year’s government work report clearly puts forward "consolidating the basic disk of foreign trade and foreign investment"

According to the relevant arrangements, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange launched new measures to optimize the foreign exchange business process of goods trade, 14 departments including the General Administration of Customs launched a special campaign to promote cross-border trade facilitation in 2024 in 20 cities, and Brunei wild aquatic products, Austrian pork, Sri Lankan pineapple, etc. were successively allowed to enter the China market … With the effective implementation of various policies, dividends continued to be released, and foreign trade growth was promising.

"In the first quarter, our sales on cross-border e-commerce platforms such as shrimp skin and Lazada increased by about 50% year-on-year, and most of our customers were concentrated in the ASEAN market." Xia Liangsheng, head of Guangxi Haobu E-Commerce Co., Ltd., told reporters that developing cross-border e-commerce business in border port cities can effectively reduce the time and cost of customs clearance of goods and further help enterprises "go out to sea" to expand international business opportunities.

At present, with the development of Internet technology, new formats and new modes, such as cross-border e-commerce, bonded maintenance and market procurement, have helped consumers and producers in various countries to "buy and sell the world" and become an important starting point for stabilizing foreign trade. In the first quarter, the import and export of intermediate goods in China increased by 4.4%, and the import and export of cross-border e-commerce increased by 9.6%, among which the export of cross-border e-commerce overseas warehouses increased by 11.8%.

The new platform expands new space. Whether it is the Consumer Expo, Canton Fair, China International Import Expo(CIIE) and other key exhibitions, or the release of trade promotion information and national trade guides, China and the world are "two-way" platforms and "treasure books" to further help enterprises explore the international market and expand trade channels, and to strengthen domestic and international exchanges and cooperation and promote the high-quality development of foreign trade.

"Overall, China’s foreign trade started strongly in the first quarter, which laid a solid foundation for achieving the goal of’ stable quality and quantity increase’ throughout the year." Wang Lingxun said.