As a “barometer” and “weather vane” of China’s foreign trade, this year’s Canton Fair is the first offline event to be fully resumed three years after the epidemic.
Influenced by the changing international situation, China’s foreign trade import and export are still facing certain risks and challenges this year.
The State Council Information Office held a press conference on Thursday to introduce the 133rd China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair).
Wang Shouwen, international trade negotiator and vice minister of the Ministry of Commerce, said at the press conference that questionnaires collected from 15,000 enterprises at the Canton Fair show that falling orders and insufficient demand are the main difficulties encountered, which is in line with our expectations. The foreign trade situation this year is grim and complicated.
He also pointed out that we should also see the competitiveness, resilience and advantages of China’s foreign trade. First, China’s economic recovery this year will give impetus to foreign trade. China’s PMI manufacturing purchasing managers’ index has been above the expansion/contraction line for the third month in a row. Economic recovery has a pull on demand for imported goods. The recovery of the domestic economy has given impetus to the export of our products.
Second, opening-up and innovation over the past 40 years have created new strengths and driving forces for foreign trade enterprises. For example, the green and new energy industry is now competitive, and we have created better market access by signing free trade agreements with our neighbors. The growth rate of cross-border e-commerce is faster than that of offline trade, and the process of trade digitization is constantly improving, which also provides new competitive advantages for foreign trade.
Third, the trade environment is improving. This year, transportation problems have been greatly eased, and shipping prices have fallen sharply. Civil aviation is resuming, passenger flights have belly cabins under them, which can bring a lot of capacity. Business is also more convenient, all these show that our trade environment in the optimization. We have also carried out some surveys recently, and now the orders in some provinces show a trend of picking up gradually.
Wang Shouwen said that the Ministry of Commerce should do a good job of policy guarantee, to promote the capture of orders, cultivate market players, to ensure the implementation of the agreement; We should actively promote the development of new forms of foreign trade and stabilize processing trade. We should make good use of open platforms and trade rules, improve the business environment, and continue to expand imports, including the success of the 133rd Canton Fair. In accordance with the arrangement of the central government, we will make great efforts to investigate and research in the field of foreign trade, find out the difficulties encountered by local governments, especially foreign trade enterprises and foreign trade industries, help them solve their problems, and make contributions to the stable development of foreign trade and economic growth.
Post time: Apr-04-2023