In 2021, the import and export scale exceeded US$ 6 trillion for the first time, and the foreign trade started well in the 14 th Five-Year Plan.

In 2021, the scale of import and export exceeded $6 trillion for the first time-
Foreign trade started well during the 14th Five-Year Plan period.

In the past 2021, China’s foreign trade handed over a bright report card. According to the data released by the General Administration of Customs on January 14th, in 2021, the total import and export value of China’s goods trade was 39.1 trillion yuan, an increase of 21.4% over 2020. Among them, exports were 21.73 trillion yuan, an increase of 21.2%; Imports reached 17.37 trillion yuan, an increase of 21.5%. Compared with 2019, China’s import and export, export and import of goods increased by 23.9%, 26.1% and 21.2% respectively.

"On the whole, the foreign trade of the 14 th Five-Year Plan has achieved a good start." Li Kuiwen, spokesperson of the General Administration of Customs and director of the Statistics and Analysis Department, said that in 2022, the uncertainties, instability and imbalances faced by foreign trade will increase, but we must also see that the fundamentals of China’s strong economic resilience and long-term improvement will not change and will continue to provide strong support for stabilizing foreign trade.

Three factors support the rapid growth of foreign trade

In dollar terms, China’s annual import and export scale reached $6.05 trillion in 2021, breaking through the $6 trillion mark for the first time and reaching an all-time high.

"In 2013, China’s foreign trade reached 4 trillion US dollars for the first time. After a lapse of eight years, China’s foreign trade has continuously crossed the two major steps of 5 trillion US dollars and 6 trillion US dollars within one year. Only the increase of 1.4 trillion US dollars in foreign trade in 2021 is equivalent to the scale of the whole year of 2005. " Li Kuiwen believes that there are three main factors supporting the rapid growth of China’s foreign trade.

First, China’s economic development and epidemic prevention and control maintain a leading position in the world. In 2021, China’s economy continued to recover, new steps were taken to build a new development pattern, new achievements were made in high-quality development, and major economic indicators maintained rapid growth, especially domestic production and consumer demand, which provided strong support for the steady growth of foreign trade. According to customs statistics, in 2021, the import and export of intermediate products in China increased by 24.9% and 28.6% respectively, and the import of consumer goods increased by 9.9%.

Second, the global economy has maintained a recovery trend. In 2021, the global economy as a whole showed a recovery trend. Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund predicted that the world economy would increase by more than 5%, and the World Trade Organization predicted that the global trade in goods would increase by 10.8%. In 2021, the growth rate of China’s exports to the EU and Africa exceeded 20%, and the growth rate of exports to Latin America exceeded 40%. Among them, the export of home economy-related products such as notebook computers, tablet computers and household appliances, as well as medical materials and medicines continued to maintain a large increase, which strongly supported the global anti-epidemic.

Third, the effects of steady growth policies and measures continue to appear. Since last year, China has issued a series of policies and measures to stabilize the main body, stabilize the market and ensure the smooth supply chain of foreign trade industry chain, such as maintaining reasonable and abundant liquidity, continuing and improving some tax reduction and fee reduction policies, implementing new structural tax cuts, increasing financing support for small and medium-sized enterprises and manufacturing enterprises, accelerating the development of new foreign trade formats and new models, further deepening the reform of cross-border trade facilitation, and promoting the reform and innovation of trade and investment facilitation in the free trade pilot zone. The effects of these policies have been continuously released, helping foreign trade enterprises to solve problems, stimulating the vitality of market players and becoming an important support for the steady growth of foreign trade.

High-quality development of foreign trade takes a new step.

In 2021, China’s foreign trade has also made new progress in improving the quality. Xu Deshun, a researcher at the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, said that positive progress has been made in terms of foreign trade market share, development of new formats, import and export structure, and the transformation and upgrading of foreign trade has achieved remarkable results.

"In terms of global market share, China has greatly increased from 4% in 2001 to 13.5% in the first three quarters of 2021." Li Kuiwen said that in the first three quarters of 2021, China’s export international market share was 14.9%, an increase of 3.8 percentage points over 2012, which was just equivalent to China’s export international market share in 2000.

Cross-border e-commerce, market procurement and other new formats and new models are the effective force of foreign trade development and an important trend of international trade development. In 2021, China’s cross-border e-commerce exports increased by 24.5% year-on-year, and market procurement exports increased by 32.1%. The policy effect of China’s new mode of promoting foreign trade continued to emerge.

Data show that in 2021, the number of foreign trade enterprises with import and export performance in China reached 567,000, an increase of 36,000. Among them, the contribution of private enterprises to foreign trade growth reached 58.2%. In terms of trade methods, China’s general trade import and export accounted for over 60% in 2021, up 1.6 percentage points year-on-year; In terms of regional distribution, the import and export of the central and western regions was 6.93 trillion yuan, an increase of 22.8%, which was 1.4 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of foreign trade in the same period. Open platforms such as the Comprehensive Bonded Zone, Pilot Free Trade Zone and Hainan Free Trade Port performed brilliantly.

It is worth mentioning that in 2021, China’s import and export to countries along the "Belt and Road" was 11.6 trillion yuan, an increase of 23.6%, which was 2.2 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of China’s foreign trade in the same period.

Stabilize foreign trade and strive for rapids.

"This year, China’s foreign trade should further stabilize its development expectations and strive for rapids." Xu Deshun said that the current global epidemic situation is still grim, and the external environment is becoming more complicated and uncertain. China’s economy is facing triple pressures of shrinking demand, supply shocks and expected weakening. It is necessary to implement policies and measures to stabilize foreign trade and promote foreign trade innovation and development.

The executive meeting of the State Council held recently proposed to further open wider to the outside world, launch countermeasures against difficult challenges, do a good job of cross-cycle adjustment, help enterprises to bail out, especially support small and medium-sized enterprises, and strive to ensure orders, stabilize expectations and promote the stable development of foreign trade.

The Opinions on Doing a Good Job of Cross-cycle Adjustment to Further Stabilize Foreign Trade issued by the General Office of the State Council recently introduced 15 measures from the aspects of strengthening fiscal and taxation policy support and further encouraging the development of new foreign trade formats, emphasizing doing a good job of cross-cycle adjustment, helping enterprises, especially small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises, and striving to ensure orders and stabilize expectations.

It is reported that multiple cross-cycle adjustments to stabilize foreign trade policies have been put on the agenda. These policy measures will further focus on the concerns of market players, gather high-level opening up, and help import and export trade maintain a stable and positive trend.

"In the next step, the General Administration of Customs will continue to deepen the’ streamline administration, delegate power, strengthen regulation and improve services’ reform in accordance with the requirements of boosting the confidence of foreign trade market players, optimize the business environment at ports, promote helping enterprises to tide over difficulties and resume development, and stimulate the endogenous motivation of foreign trade market players." Li Kuiwen said. (Reporter Gu Yang)