Policies to promote foreign trade are intensively introduced, but implementation is faced with many obstacles

Zhou Shijian, a senior researcher at the Center for Sino-U.S. Relations at Tsinghua University, believes that the “Opinions” are generally about the future direction. Foreign trade companies are facing such difficulties this year. To truly solve the problem, they need to implement specific policies and introduce targeted policies.
After several years of deliberation, the State Council issued the “Several Opinions on Accelerating the Cultivation of New Advantages in Foreign Trade Competition” (hereinafter referred to as the “Opinions”) on the 12th, clarifying that China will comprehensively improve the level of economic and trade cooperation with countries along the “Belt and Road” and promote the structure of foreign trade. adjustments, creating a legalized business landscape and other aspects, and made directional judgments.
A few days ago, foreign trade data released by the General Administration of Customs showed that, continuing the trend of both import and export declines in March, April still showed a weak trend of double declines.
Li Jian, director of the Foreign Trade Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce Research Institute, has participated in early policy-related topics. He believes that the introduction of such policies at this time is based on many factors, mainly to implement the view of cultivating new advantages in foreign trade proposed by the 18th National Congress, and further details are expected to be introduced in the future. In addition, the recent poor situation of foreign trade is also a factor to consider.
Another core person pointed out to this reporter that the “Opinions” had been issued at the department and bureau level earlier this year. The full text was released this time to allow all localities and departments to have a unified understanding for better implementation.
However, Zhou Shijian, a senior researcher at the Center for Sino-U.S. Relations at Tsinghua University, believes that the “Opinions” are generally about future direction. Foreign trade companies are so difficult this year that real solutions to the problem need to be implemented and targeted specific policies must be introduced.
​Promote the continuous introduction of foreign trade policies
Since this year, various departments of the State Council have successively introduced policies to promote foreign trade. Following the introduction of trade facilitation measures by the Customs and Commodity Inspection and other departments, the State Council executive meeting also deployed policies related to the import and export of consumer goods to enrich domestic consumers’ shopping options.
The core of foreign trade policy is taxation (tariffs and export tax rebates) and exchange rate policy. For small and micro enterprises that are sensitive to financial pressure, exchange rate policies and tax burdens directly affect the company’s profits and capital turnover speed.
But in Zhou Shijian’s view, there is still a lot of resistance to implementation. He said that the Ministry of Finance’s tariff reduction process is not done all at once, but is reduced year by year. By the time the policy is actually implemented, several years will have passed and it will not solve the immediate problem.
After the abnormal foreign trade trend during the Spring Festival in January-February, the foreign trade trend in March-April was relatively sluggish, with imports and exports experiencing a year-on-year decline of about 10%. Among them, the decline in imports is particularly obvious. What seems unusual to some industry insiders is that although commodity prices began to rebound significantly after March, import data remained low.
On the other hand, the exchange rate has also begun to gradually recover this year. Except for the fact that the US dollar exchange rate did not depreciate against the RMB, other major currencies all depreciated against the RMB.
People familiar with the matter told our reporter that this year’s exchange rate policy may continue to strengthen. The reason is that China is actively seeking RMB special drawing rights from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to promote the internationalization of the RMB. “In this process, the strength of the RMB is very important.” said the person above.
It is difficult to truly implement various effective policies, which also leads to a long way to go to boost foreign trade.
Reporters have learned from authoritative sources that at the end of March and the beginning of April, because the March data was not very optimistic, foreign trade authorities including the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce, the General Administration of Customs, etc. had organized surveys of foreign trade companies in many places and tried to find solutions. Of the policy.
According to data released by the customs on the 8th, in the first four months of this year, my country’s total import and export value was 7.5 trillion yuan, a decrease of 7.3% compared with the same period last year (the same below). Among them, exports were 4.23 trillion yuan, an increase of 1.8%; imports were 3.27 trillion yuan, a decrease of 17%; the trade surplus was 965.37 billion yuan, an increase of 3.4 times.
​Cultivation of new comparative advantages
In the long run, this “Opinion” also needs to allow all departments to truly have a unified understanding in order to solve long-standing institutional problems in foreign trade development.
The “Opinions” emphasize that we must vigorously promote the transformation of my country’s foreign trade from scale and speed to quality and efficiency, and strive to achieve five transformations: first, promote the transformation of exports from mainly goods to a combination of goods, services, technology, and capital exports; second, promote The competitive advantage has shifted from price advantage to a comprehensive competitive advantage with technology, brand, quality and service as the core; the third is to promote the transformation of growth momentum from factor-driven to innovation-driven; the fourth is to promote the business environment from policy guidance to System standards and the creation of a legalized international business environment have changed; fifthly, the status of global economic governance has been promoted from abiding by and adapting to international economic and trade rules to actively participating in the formulation of international economic and trade rules.
After the financial crisis, China’s foreign trade trend suffered setbacks due to sluggish external market demand and rising internal labor costs. Under such circumstances, since the 2010 “Research on China’s Foreign Trade Development Strategy in the Post-Crisis Era” report proposed a ten-year doubling plan, the foreign trade authorities have been carefully studying and trying to find solutions and seek comparative advantages in the new era.
When Huo Jianguo served as the dean of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, he led the “China in the Post-Crisis Era” in 2010.”Trade Development Strategy” project to solve the strategic problem of China’s transformation from a large trading country to a powerful trading country in the post-crisis era. Later, this topic was not adopted by senior officials.
“At that time, our foreign trade growth rate could still reach double digits. The current situation is much more difficult than that time, and we really need more follow-up and detailed policy cooperation.” He told this reporter.