(Economic Watch) What are the prospects for China's foreign trade, foreign investment and consumption in 2022?

　　China News Service, Beijing, January 25th: What are the prospects for China's foreign trade, foreign investment and consumption in 2022?

　　China News Agency reporter Liu Liang

　　In 2021, China's foreign trade, foreign investment, and consumption scale will all hit record highs.

In 2022, what are the prospects of these three business fields?

Several officials of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce analyzed this at a press conference on the 25th.

Foreign trade is expected to achieve stable opening

　　In 2021, China's annual import and export of goods will be 39.1 trillion yuan (RMB, the same below), a year-on-year increase of 21.4%.

In dollar terms, China's import and export volume exceeded the US$6 trillion mark for the first time.

　　Li Xingqian, director of the Department of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Commerce, pointed out that in 2021, China's foreign trade will achieve rapid growth, mainly due to four major power sources - policy, external demand, supply and new business formats.

　　He explained that a series of policies continued to exert force to stabilize the main body of foreign trade and stabilize market expectations; the global economy as a whole showed a recovery trend, which increased the demand for Chinese products; China's industrial system is complete, and its ability to increase supply is strong; cross-border E-commerce and other new business forms and new models are booming, and various platforms and merchants have given full play to their advantages in online marketing, contactless transactions, and short-distance distribution to help foreign trade break through against the trend.

　　Looking forward to this year, Li Xingqian said frankly, "The foreign trade situation is very severe, and the difficulties and pressures to stabilize growth are unprecedented."

　　From the perspective of demand, the growth of global external demand is faced with two major uncertainties: the epidemic has repeatedly delayed the global economic recovery process, and the uneven recovery has led to rising global systemic risks.

　　From the perspective of supply, the global industrial chain supply chain faces two major challenges: First, the accelerated restructuring of the international supply chain, developed economies unilaterally pursue industrial return, are fragmenting the market, and reduce the efficiency of global resource allocation.

Second, the global supply chain disorder and bottleneck effect cannot be completely alleviated in the short term.

These will continue to put pressure on foreign trade growth.

　　However, Li Xingqian also emphasized: "China's foreign trade industry has a solid foundation, and the fundamentals of long-term improvement have not changed. With the joint efforts of various localities, departments and foreign trade enterprises, we are confident that we can achieve a stable opening of foreign trade and maintain a reasonable operation of foreign trade throughout the year. range."

Data map: Container terminal.

Photo by Zhang Yin

Foreign investors continue to be optimistic about China

　　In 2021, China's foreign investment will exceed one trillion yuan for the first time, reaching 1,149.36 billion yuan.

　　Chen Chunjiang, director of the Foreign Investment Management Department of the Ministry of Commerce, analyzed that the main reasons for attracting foreign capital to achieve such results are as follows:

　　First, the effect of expanding opening-up continued to be demonstrated.

China has further reduced the negative list for foreign investment access, comprehensively lifted restrictions on foreign shareholding ratios in the auto manufacturing industry, and achieved "zero" manufacturing restrictions in the Pilot Free Trade Zone, which continue to release positive signals to the outside world.

　　Second, the effect of the foreign investment stabilization policy continued to manifest.

Under the "combination" of local policies, the eastern, central and western regions have made concerted efforts to attract foreign investment, with year-on-year growth of 14.6%, 20.5% and 14.2% respectively, and 20 provinces have achieved double-digit growth in foreign investment, which is the best way to stabilize foreign investment nationwide. provided important support.

　　The third is the continuous demonstration of the driving effect of the open platform.

Investment liberalization and facilitation measures for open platforms such as pilot free trade zones, free trade ports, and pilot demonstrations for the expansion and opening of the service industry have continued to be introduced, becoming a high ground for attracting foreign investment.

　　Chen Chunjiang also emphasized that China's increased service to enterprises and optimization of the business environment have also created conditions for attracting foreign investment, such as coordinating and solving difficult problems such as entry of foreign-funded enterprises, customs clearance of goods, and vaccination, which have effectively stabilized business operations.

　　"Foreign-funded enterprises truly feel that China welcomes foreign investment, and their business development expectations and investment confidence have become more stable. According to a recent questionnaire survey by the Ministry of Commerce, 94.9% of the more than 3,000 key foreign-funded enterprises are generally optimistic about their future business prospects. "Chen Chunjiang said.

Consumption continues to recover

　　In 2021, the Chinese consumer market will show a steady recovery, showing strong vitality and resilience.

　　Data show that the total retail sales of consumer goods in 2021 will be 44.1 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.5%.

The contribution rate of final consumption expenditure to economic growth reached 65.4%, and consumption has become the first driving force of economic growth again.

　　From the perspective of consumption recovery, the urban and rural markets have recovered simultaneously (the urban and rural cooperatives’ zero sales increased by 12.5% ​​and 12.1% year-on-year, respectively), the consumption of upgraded commodities has increased significantly, the consumption of catering and other services has recovered in an orderly manner, and the rapid development of new types of consumption, etc. further recovery of the consumer market.

　　While the consumer market is recovering steadily, new consumption growth points continue to provide assistance.

For example, various new technologies and new concepts have been widely penetrated in the consumption field, and new consumption scenarios are constantly emerging; smart consumption is growing rapidly; green consumption represented by new energy vehicles and used car transactions is also booming.

　　Looking forward to this year, Xu Xingfeng, head of the Department of Market Operation and Consumption Promotion of the Ministry of Commerce, pointed out that despite the recent spread of the new crown epidemic, China's normalized epidemic prevention and control policies are more precise and scientific, which will help stabilize consumption expectations; The steady increase in the level of residents' income will further stabilize the consumption base; the gradual implementation of policies and measures such as expanding domestic demand and promoting consumption will provide strong support for the recovery of consumption.

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