(Mid-year economic observation) Will the epidemic enter the third wave of Chinese exports in the second half of the year?
China News Agency, Beijing, June 22 (Reporter Li Xiaoyu) Half of 2020 is about to pass, and the new coronary pneumonia epidemic is still spreading around the world. Analysts here believe that despite the increased uncertainty under the epidemic, China's exports will remain stable this year.
First, the period when the epidemic hit China's exports most was concentrated in February and March. At that time, due to delays in the resumption of production and production, the flow of people and logistics were blocked, and many foreign trade companies in China experienced problems such as in-time orders that could not be delivered on time or were canceled, and the export suffered heavy losses. A person in charge of a textile company told reporters that the company's exports were almost zero in February and March. There are also construction materials companies that said that the company’s exports fell by 40% year-on-year in the first quarter.
However, with the resumption of domestic production and production, the epidemic situation in many countries has stabilized and the economy has been restarted. China's exports have been picking up. According to official data, China's exports fell by 4.7% from January to May this year, a decrease of 1.7 percentage points from January to April and 6.7 percentage points from the first quarter.
Judging from the Canton Fair known as the "barometer" and "wind vane" of China's foreign trade, most exhibitors shared the same feeling: the most difficult time has passed, and the annual export is expected to be the same as last year or even increase.
Zhuhai Kelitong Electric Co., Ltd. stated that the company's newly signed orders from January to May increased by more than 20% compared with the same period of last year. Order signing and execution are steadily advancing and orderly increasing, and the annual export will reach 20% to 30% growth of. Wang Lixin, chairman of Darente Arts & Crafts Co., Ltd., said that the company's orders are now too large to "workers are too busy."
Yu Miaojie, deputy dean of the National Development Institute of Peking University, said in an interview with China News Agency that although China’s exports of intermediate goods and capital goods will relatively decline, the demand for consumer goods in developed economies still exists, and only China can To meet such demands, the impact on exports will gradually weaken. He expects that China's trade surplus for the whole year is expected to be the same as last year.
Second, markets such as ASEAN have been steadily rising, providing important support for China's exports.
Affected by factors such as the China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone upgraded version and the UK's "Brexit", ASEAN has replaced the EU as China's largest trading partner. According to official data, the bilateral trade volume between China and ASEAN was nearly 1.7 trillion yuan in the first five months of this year, a year-on-year increase of 4.2%, of which exports to ASEAN increased by 2.8%, a growth rate higher than the overall 7.5 percentage points.
The Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China issued a report saying that import and export trade with countries along the “Belt and Road” such as ASEAN has become an important factor in the stable development of China's foreign trade and is of great significance for promoting market diversification and stabilizing China's basic foreign trade.
During the two sessions of this year, China has made it clear that it will promote "one step further" in its relations with ASEAN, including strengthening the planning and integration of the "Belt and Road" initiative and ASEAN interconnection; improving the level of economic integration. Analysts believe that this will provide a "protection layer" and "buffer zone" for China and ASEAN economic and trade development under the epidemic, and both parties will benefit from it.
Third, cross-border e-commerce, online broadcast and other new formats and new models are booming, which will inject new vitality into China's exports.
Under the epidemic, Chinese exporters accustomed to offline trade began to accelerate their transition to online. Many exhibitors said that the results of participating in the online Canton Fair "exceeded expectations", and the live broadcast room attracted thousands of buyers in just a few days, which is unimaginable offline.
Wei Jianguo, deputy chairman of the China International Economic Exchange Center and former deputy minister of the Ministry of Commerce, told reporters from China News Service that the integration of the three trading methods of processing trade, general trade, and cross-border e-commerce is a unique advantage of China’s foreign trade, which is conducive to The outlet provides "decompression valve" and "shock pad". Today, many companies are using cross-border e-commerce to obtain large orders in the European and American markets. Cross-border e-commerce has become a "vibrant cell" in China's foreign trade. Under this circumstance, China's foreign trade trend in 2020 is entirely likely to be "low before high": it continued to recover in the second quarter, it was relatively high in the third quarter, and "tailed" in the fourth quarter. (Finish)