What is the future trend of China's foreign trade growth rate cooling down?

　(Economic Watch) What will the future trend of China's foreign trade growth be when it cools down?

　　China News Service, Beijing, May 9 (Reporter Li Xiaoyu) China's foreign trade dropped sharply in April, and the growth rate of exports fell by more than 10% compared with March.

Analysts here believe that the decline in foreign trade growth caused by the epidemic may continue for a period of time, but the scale of imports and exports throughout the year is expected to remain stable.

　　According to data released by the General Administration of Customs of China on the 9th, the total import and export value of China's trade in goods in April was 3.16 trillion yuan, an increase of only 0.1% year-on-year, and the growth rate dropped sharply by 5.7 percentage points from March.

Among them, exports increased by 1.9% year-on-year, and the growth rate was much lower than the 12.9% in March; imports fell by 2%, 0.3 percentage points higher than that in March.

　　Affected by the sharp slowdown in import and export growth in April, China's foreign trade increased by 7.9% year-on-year from January to April, a drop of 2.8 percentage points from the first quarter.

　　Pang Ming, chief strategist at China Renaissance, said that the Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) in the United States and the euro zone rebounded to 59.2% and 55.5% in April, both higher than the 50% line of prosperity and decline, indicating that the recovery of external demand is generally stable.

The major downward pressure on China's foreign trade is mainly due to the repeated outbreak of the epidemic in April, which hindered the resumption of work and production, and the poor supply chain, logistics and transportation, etc., while the continued sluggish investment of Chinese domestic enterprises and residents' willingness to consume continued to stabilize expectations and subjects. , stabilizing employment, stabilizing growth and other challenges, and together with the rising trend of international bulk commodity prices to curb the import tendency.

　　Gao Lingyun, a researcher at the Institute of World Economics and Politics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview with a reporter from China News Agency that the sharp drop in the growth rate of imports and exports in April was the result of the spread of the domestic epidemic.

As the current epidemic continues, it is expected that China's foreign trade will still be affected to some extent in May.

　　While the growth rate of China's foreign trade has cooled, the exports of many neighboring countries are "surging forward".

For example, South Korea's exports in April increased by 12.6% year-on-year, and the cumulative export value in the first four months reached 230.6 billion US dollars.

　　In Gao Lingyun's view, what is more worthy of attention than the decline in import and export growth is that the market share of Chinese foreign trade companies is being squeezed.

If the epidemic continues and the resumption of work and production is delayed, it will have a profound impact on China's foreign trade.

　　Under the severe foreign trade situation, the government began to implement intensive policies.

Following the request to speed up the progress of export tax rebates, the executive meeting of the State Council recently announced a new round of measures to stabilize foreign trade, including securing orders, stabilizing the import and export of key industries and labor-intensive industries, and providing key foreign trade enterprises in terms of production, logistics, employment, etc. Guarantee; effectively and orderly dredge the collection and distribution of sea and airport, improve the efficiency of operations and customs clearance, and ensure the transportation of important parts, equipment and products; increase credit to small, medium and micro foreign trade enterprises, etc.

　　At the same time, the epidemic prevention policy is also being optimized.

Lei Zhenglong, head of the National Health Commission's Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention, said that the scientific and precise level of epidemic prevention and control is constantly improving, scientifically delineating medium and high-risk areas, doing precise management and control by grading, classification and zoning, and promoting the resumption of work and production in a standardized and orderly manner.

　　Analysts believe that increasingly precise epidemic prevention policies and measures to stabilize foreign trade covering multiple links will provide assistance for the steady growth of China's foreign trade.

　　Gao Lingyun said that considering that the current decline in China's foreign trade growth is caused by the epidemic, when the epidemic situation is stable and the epidemic prevention policy is gradually relaxed, import and export are expected to have a "spring effect", that is, the more restrictions are imposed in the early stage, the greater the rebound after the restrictions are lifted.

Looking forward to the whole year, under multiple uncertainties, China's foreign trade growth rate is expected to end the high growth state of the previous two years, but the scale is still expected to remain stable at around US$6 trillion.

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