The scale continues to rise, and the structure continues to optimize——
Ensure that foreign trade runs within a reasonable range
Our reporter Feng Qiyu
As the end of the year is approaching, the trend of my country’s foreign trade achieving rapid growth in 2021 is becoming clearer: the scale of foreign trade continues to rise, the structure is continuously optimized, and the quality continues to improve. Foreign trade has played a particularly prominent role in stimulating economic growth this year.
However, as the new crown pneumonia epidemic has repeatedly disturbed the world economy and the short-term and medium- to long-term risks of economic growth are superimposed, my country's foreign trade development environment is still facing greater uncertainty.
Recently, the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan for High-Quality Development of Foreign Trade" was released.
In an interview with a reporter from the Economic Daily, many experts said that at present, we should continue to amplify favorable factors, do a good job in cross-cycle adjustment, prevent and resolve risks in the foreign trade field, continue to improve the ability of foreign trade services to build a new development pattern, and continue to promote high-quality foreign trade development.
Increased uncertainties in the external environment
Since last year, due to my country's strong response to the epidemic, coupled with its strong manufacturing base and complete supply chain, the advantages have been fully utilized, effectively making up for the global supply gap, and driving my country's foreign trade indicators to record highs.
However, the uncertainty and repetition of the global epidemic, the impact on world economic growth, and the disruption of the global industrial chain and supply chain continue to appear.
"my country's foreign trade development is facing a more uncertain external environment." Yang Changyong, a researcher at the Institute of Foreign Economic Relations at the China Academy of Macroeconomics, said that under the influence of the epidemic, the probability of a slowdown in global economic growth next year is higher. Changes in foreign demand will have a short-term impact on my country’s exports.
Zhu Caihua, a professor at the Institute of International Economics of the University of International Business and Economics, believes that the supply and demand gap in the international market caused by the epidemic still exists, but for the development of my country's foreign trade enterprises, it will be increasingly squeezed by both sides, and external pressure is increasing.
On the demand side, the mutation of the virus has brought more uncertainty to the recovery of the world economy, weak employment growth, regression of human capital accumulation, and rising inflation, all of which have suppressed demand to varying degrees.
From the perspective of the supply side, due to the superposition of factors such as rising prices of bulk commodities and raw materials, rising labor costs, etc., it has squeezed out the profit margins of foreign trade companies.
At the same time, we must also see the favorable factors facing the development of foreign trade.
For example, Yang Changyong said that the repeated epidemics have made it difficult for the overseas industrial chain supply chain to fully recover in the short term, while the smooth operation of my country's industrial chain supply chain will continue to maintain the world's major supply places and supply sources of goods; new types of trade formats cross-border under the epidemic E-commerce is bucking the trend, and my country's cross-border e-commerce development ranks in the forefront of the world.
Use policy tools to make cross-cycle adjustments
Ren Hongbin, Vice Minister of Commerce, said that behind the rapid growth of foreign trade, many foreign trade companies, especially small, medium and micro foreign trade companies, have increased their operating pressure, and the phenomenon of "not daring to accept orders" and "increasing revenue without increasing profits" is more common.
There are still many hidden worries in the development of foreign trade, and we cannot be blindly optimistic.
In response to the actual difficulties and needs faced by foreign trade companies, Ren Hongbin said that relevant departments will do a good job in cross-cycle adjustments, and timely introduce a new round of measures to stabilize foreign trade to ensure that foreign trade runs within a reasonable range.
“Cross-cyclical adjustment is mainly aimed at innovations in the macroeconomic governance of domestic economic operations.” Yang Changyong said that compared with the traditional discretionary counter-cyclical adjustment policies, the inter-cyclical adjustments of macroeconomic policies are more focused on medium and long-term goals. Pay attention to the quality of economic growth and structural optimization.
At the same time, cross-cycle adjustments must use policy tools on both sides of supply and demand, and the coordination and cooperation requirements between policies will be even higher.
Zhu Caihua said that to do a good job of cross-cycle adjustment to ensure that foreign trade continues to operate within a reasonable range. On the one hand, the focus of the policy must first focus on the actual difficulties faced by enterprises at the moment, and do a good job in stabilizing the market, stabilizing orders, and promoting smooth supply chains to ensure market players. work.
On the other hand, the focus of the policy should also be long-term, especially in the face of the new and complex situation of international economics and trade. It is necessary to promote the innovative development of foreign trade and strengthen foreign economic and trade cooperation to cultivate my country's new competitive advantages in foreign trade in an all-round way.
According to the Ministry of Commerce, my country will introduce a new round of foreign trade stabilization policies and measures to ensure that foreign trade runs within a reasonable range.
Prevent and resolve risks in the field of foreign trade, further enhance the role of export credit insurance, and focus on foreign trade credit; improve the quality and efficiency of foreign trade development, do a good job in expanding the new batch of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot areas, and give full play to cross-border e-commerce , Overseas warehouses and other new business formats and new models have a leading role to build a digital pilot area for global trade; to ensure the stability and smooth flow of the foreign trade industry chain and supply chain.
Cultivate various platforms such as national processing trade industrial parks, import trade promotion innovation demonstration zones, foreign trade transformation and upgrading bases, and promote the smooth flow of goods and settlements; strengthen international economic and trade cooperation.
Give full play to the role of the unimpeded trade working group, make good use of the signed free trade agreements, carefully organize major exhibitions such as the Canton Fair, the International Import Expo, and the Service Trade Fair, and guide enterprises to explore diversified markets.
Complete, accurate and comprehensive implementation of the new development concept
As an important guidance document in the field of foreign trade, the "Plan" puts forward new requirements for the high-quality development of foreign trade after my country has entered a new stage of development.
Yang Changyong said that the "Plan" focuses on five aspects, one is the complete and accurate implementation of the new development concept; the second is the service to build a new development pattern; the third is to adapt to the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, as well as the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic , Actively develop new trade formats; fourth, coordinate development and security, coordinate openness and security, and strengthen risk prevention and control systems; fifth, vigorously expand and jointly build the "Belt and Road" market, in accordance with the central government's deployment of the "Belt and Road" , To promote the unimpeded trade of the "Belt and Road".
"Optimizing trade structure and improving trade quality is an important direction of the "Plan"." Zhu Caihua analyzed that this includes two levels. The first level is to optimize the structure of trade in goods and services in foreign trade. The general direction is to stabilize The advantages of goods trade and the expansion of service trade advantages are also in line with the overall development trend of international trade, that is, the development of goods trade has slowed down and service trade has entered a stage of rapid development.
The second level is optimized for goods trade and service trade. The optimization of goods trade structure mainly includes the "six optimizations", namely, optimization of international market layout, domestic regional layout, business entities, commodity structure, trade methods and trade promotion platforms; Optimizing the structure of service trade includes optimizing the structure of service import and export, accelerating the transformation and upgrading of service outsourcing, and vigorously developing digital trade.
At the same time, it is necessary to rely on innovative development to enhance trade momentum, which mainly includes accelerating the development of new trade formats such as cross-border e-commerce and overseas warehouses, and improving the level of trade digitization.
This is also in line with the need to build a strong trade country in the digital age, that is, relying on technological innovation, institutional innovation, model innovation, and business format innovation to continuously create new momentum for my country's foreign trade.
Relevant experts said that the key to the implementation of the "Plan" is to ensure that relevant funds and supporting policies are in place on the one hand, and on the other hand to do a good job in dynamic evaluation, improve the monitoring and evaluation mechanism, and promote the development of dynamic monitoring, mid-term evaluation, and summary evaluation. And strengthen the application of monitoring and evaluation results.