China's Fixed-asset Investment (FAI)

According to data recently released by the General Administration of Customs, in US dollars, China's import and export volume exceeded US$411.2 billion in February this year, a year-on-year increase of 1.3%. 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, from the trend point of view, based on weekly monitoring, China’s foreign trade imports and exports have stabilized significantly since February, and the last week of February has increased by more than the previous week. 15%. With the overall improvement of China's economic situation, the momentum of foreign trade's steady start in the first two months is expected to be maintained. Exports are better than expected.

Data show that in February, China's imports reached US$197.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 4.2%, ending the trend of year-on-year growth decline for four consecutive months; February's exports fell by 1.3% year-on-year, but compared with the previous three months. Significantly narrowed. "On the whole, the start is stable and the trend is positive." Yu Jianhua, director of the General Administration of Customs, said when introducing the development of foreign trade in the first two months of this year, "In terms of scale, the total export value in the first two months hit a record high, and the growth 0.9%, better than expected. The total value of imports and exports exceeded 6 trillion yuan, which is the second time in history."

From the composition point of view, during the epidemic period, China took the lead in resuming work and production, and the export of anti-epidemic materials and "stay-at-home economy" products increased significantly, which raised the foreign trade base. "We have calculated that if the 'one-time factor' is excluded, the import and export growth in the first two months of this year will exceed 10%." Yu Jianhua said.

To help the recovery of foreign trade, 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 across the country has been reduced by 67% and 92% respectively compared with 2017; in terms of cost reduction, the customs supports enterprises to enjoy various preferential tax policies. 285 billion yuan in tax cuts and tax rebates for foreign trade enterprises; in terms of excellent services, we will carry out "customs chiefs to deliver policies to your door", innovate supervision models such as "release first and then inspect" bulk commodities, and "green channels" for agricultural and food products. 87 The catalog of legal inspections has been transferred out of various commodity codes, and the business environment of ports has been continuously optimized.

Yu Jianhua said that in view of the pain points and blockages of enterprises, the customs will also study new policy measures in terms of smooth import and export logistics, optimize the port business environment, reduce enterprise costs, and support the development of new formats, such as promoting the construction of smart customs, helping Enterprises should make full use of the preferential tariffs in RCEP and other free trade agreements.

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

As one of the new forms of international trade development, cross-border e-commerce is showing great vitality. Nowadays, more and more products 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, mass production and informatization. The data shows that the number of import lists of cross-border e-commerce is 5-6 times 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. "During the supervision process, we seized controlled psychotropic substances, intellectual property infringement items, 'exotic pets' and other contraband. It should be said that these new situations have posed challenges to the customs supervision work." Sun Yu, deputy director of the General Administration of Customs Ning 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 has created a customs supervision model suitable for the characteristics of cross-border e-commerce through classified management and "tailor-made".

On the basis of the original "Business-to-Consumer (B2C)", the General Administration of Customs proposes a regulatory policy that better serves "Business-to-Business (B2B)" and "Business-to-Business-to-Consumer (B2B2C)"; Technology empowerment, development and application of a unified version of cross-border e-commerce supervision information system, realized the integrated management of transaction, payment, logistics and other related data. "At the same time, we have comprehensively promoted the paperless registration of cross-border e-commerce export overseas warehouses, and realized 'one-site filing, nationwide use'. As of the end of February, the number of cross-border e-commerce overseas warehouse companies that have registered with the customs has reached 1,713." Sun Yuning explain.

Confidence in promoting stability and improving quality

At present, global inflation is high and the growth of major economies is sluggish, which poses 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 is expected to grow by only 1% for the whole year. The recent fluctuations in the financial markets of some Western countries have had an impact on the global trade environment, which is also an external challenge for China to promote stability and improve the quality of foreign trade.

"The challenges China's foreign trade faces are short-term, cyclical, and global; while the opportunities for foreign trade development are long-term, structural, and regional." Cheng Shi, Chief Economist of ICBC International , driven by economic growth and scientific and technological progress, global aggregate demand is expected to increase in a trend, and the wave of globalization of trade in services may become a breakthrough point in the development of China's foreign trade.

Yu Jianhua introduced that in the first two months, more companies entered the field of foreign trade, and 46,000 foreign trade operators were newly registered by the customs, indicating that market confidence is accumulating and recovering. "In terms of orders, the proportion of enterprises with new export orders has continued to increase. In terms of new kinetic energy, the total export of electric vehicles, lithium batteries, and solar cells has increased by 60%. In terms of trade diversification, China's "Belt and Road The import and export of the countries along the "Road" increased by more than 10%, and the total import and export of 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 that in comparison, China's competitive advantage is still obvious. With the overall improvement of China's economic situation, the momentum of foreign trade's steady start in the first two months is expected to be maintained. This year, China is confident in realizing the goal of promoting stability and improving quality of foreign trade.