China News Service, February 2nd. On the 2nd, the State Council Information Office held a press conference on business work and operations in 2022. Vice Minister of Commerce Guo Tingting said that in 2022, the Ministry of Commerce will resolutely implement the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, and actively respond to them. The impact of unexpected factors, the overall planning of epidemic prevention and control and business development, solidly promoted the implementation of a package of policies and subsequent measures to stabilize the economy, and the overall business operation throughout the year achieved steady progress, making positive contributions to the overall economic and social stability.
From the perspective of the main areas of business work, the consumer market is basically stable.
The total retail sales of social consumer goods for the whole year will reach 44 trillion yuan, which is basically the same as that in 2021.
Among them, the development trend of new consumption is good. The online retail sales of physical goods increased by 6.2%, and the proportion of the total social retail sales increased further, reaching 27.2%.
Physical retail sales continued to grow. The retail sales of physical stores above designated size increased by 1%. The consumption scenarios continued to expand and the consumption experience continued to improve.
The release of upgraded consumer demand accelerated, and sales of new energy vehicles increased by 93.4%.
Foreign trade was better than expected.
Foreign trade was impacted by multiple factors last year, and the Ministry of Commerce, together with various departments and localities, worked together to actively respond.
Through joint efforts, the scale of foreign trade in the year reached a record high again, and the import and export of goods broke through the 40 trillion yuan mark, reaching 42.1 trillion yuan, an increase of 7.7%.
Among them, imports and exports with major trading partners maintained growth, and imports and exports with the top three trading partners - ASEAN, the European Union, and the United States increased by 15%, 5.6% and 3.7% respectively.
The trade structure has also been continuously optimized. The import and export of private enterprises increased by 12.9%, accounting for more than 50%. The formation of new competitive advantages is accelerating.
Trade in services grew steadily, with imports and exports of services reaching 5.98 trillion yuan, an increase of 12.9%.
Among them, the import and export of travel services and knowledge-intensive services increased by 8.4% and 7.8% respectively.
Use foreign capital to maintain growth.
The actual use of foreign capital in the year was 1.2 trillion yuan, an increase of 6.3% on a comparable basis, which once again proves that China is still a hot spot for foreign investment and business development.
The quality of foreign investment continued to improve. Manufacturing investment increased by 46.1%, accounting for 26.3%, a further increase of 7.8 percentage points over 2021; high-tech industry investment increased by 28.3%, accounting for 36.1%, an increase of 7.1 percentage points over the previous year.
Investments from major sources of foreign capital maintained growth. Investments in Germany, South Korea, and the United Kingdom increased by 52.9%, 64.2%, and 40.7% respectively, and investments in Hong Kong increased by 1.7%.
Relevant open highland demonstrations have an obvious driving effect. 21 free trade pilot zones have absorbed foreign investment of 222.52 billion yuan, accounting for 18.1% of the country; 230 national economic development zones have absorbed foreign investment of 259.64 billion yuan, accounting for 21.1%.
Foreign investment developed steadily.
The annual foreign non-financial direct investment was 785.94 billion yuan, an increase of 7.2%.
Among them, investment in countries along the “Belt and Road” increased by 7.7%, accounting for 17.9%.
In terms of industries, investment in the manufacturing sector increased by 22.4%, accounting for 18.5%; investment in the wholesale and retail industry and construction industry increased by 24.6% and 19.8% respectively; investment and cooperation in green, digital and other fields have become new growth points.
Foreign contracted projects developed steadily, with a turnover of 1 trillion yuan, an increase of 4.3%, and the number of newly signed projects with a contract value of more than 50 million US dollars increased by 59 compared with 2021.
New breakthroughs have been achieved in multilateral and bilateral cooperation.
Head-of-state diplomacy has led to the continuous deepening of economic and trade relations.
Last year, the Ministry of Commerce promoted the G20 and APEC to achieve positive results in the economic and trade field, and successfully held the BRICS and SCO Economic and Trade Ministers Meeting.
Promote the conclusion of a package of agreements at the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference, leading to the substantive conclusion of investment facilitation negotiations.
The negotiations on China's accession to the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) were officially launched.
Complete the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 Joint Feasibility Study and start negotiations.
Promote the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) to come into effect as scheduled and implement it with high quality. The annual import and export to other RCEP members accounted for 30.8% of my country's total foreign trade.
Guo Tingting said that in 2023, based on the "three important" positioning of business work, the Ministry of Commerce will focus on restoring and expanding consumption, promote a stable scale and optimized structure of foreign trade, make greater efforts to attract and utilize foreign capital, promote high-level opening up, and vigorously boost the market. Confidence, promote high-quality business development, provide important support for stable growth, stable employment, and stable prices, and make positive contributions to building a modern socialist country in an all-round way.
(China New Finance and Economics)