Beijing, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Quarterly trend continues to improve, with a solid foundation of "quality improvement and quantity stability" -- Interpretation of the 2024 China Foreign Trade Half Year Report
Xinhua News Agency reporters Zou Duowei and Tang Shinang
How does China's foreign trade "carriage" perform in the complex external environment? On the 12th, the General Administration of Customs released data showing that in the first half of this year, China's total import and export value of goods trade was 21.17 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.1%.
Observing the six-month data, it can be found that in terms of scale, since March, China's monthly import and export scale has remained stable at over 3.5 trillion yuan. In the first half of the year, the import and export scale reached 21 trillion yuan, and the trade scale reached a new high; In terms of growth rate, foreign trade in the second quarter increased by 7.4% year-on-year, an increase of 2.5 and 5.7 percentage points respectively compared to the first quarter and the fourth quarter of last year, and the quarterly trend continued to improve.
Such achievements are hard won, "said Chen Hongna, deputy researcher at the Foreign Economic Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council. Overall, China's goods trade showed strong resilience and vitality in the first half of the year.
Especially on the export side, the year-on-year growth rate continued to rebound to 6.9%. Multiple foreign media outlets such as Reuters and CNBC have praised China's export performance as "exceeding expectations". Agence France Presse pointed out in its report that exports have always been an important driving force for China's economic growth. According to June data, monthly exports have been increasing year-on-year for three consecutive months.
What are the main factors supporting these achievements?
From an external perspective, the improvement in the global trade situation has effectively driven the stable growth of China's foreign trade.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) report predicts that global trade in goods will grow by 2.6% in 2024 and continue this year's recovery momentum in 2025, with an expected growth of 3.3%.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also predicts in its latest World Economic Outlook report that global trade volume, including goods and services, will grow by 3% this year.
At the same time, many factors such as the recovery of demand in developed economies such as Europe and America, and the entry of the global technology industry into an upward cycle have also brought benefits to the recovery of external demand.
According to customs statistics, in the first half of the year, China's export structure was further optimized, and the export of mechanical and electrical products increased by 8.2% year-on-year, accounting for nearly 60% of the export proportion. Taking automobiles as an example, China's automobile exports increased by 22.2% year-on-year, and the overall growth momentum remains strong. In addition, the export of labor-intensive products has shown a good momentum, with upstream textile exports increasing by 6.5% year-on-year.
From an internal perspective, since the beginning of this year, China has successively launched a series of policy combinations in various aspects such as exchange rate, credit, insurance, taxation, cross-border e-commerce overseas warehouses, and the construction of free trade pilot zones, which have played an important role in stabilizing orders and expanding markets for foreign trade enterprises, and promoting the consolidation of China's international competitiveness in foreign trade.
Thanks to the above measures, in the first half of the year, the import and export of private enterprises with high flexibility and strong autonomy increased by 11.2% year-on-year, continuing to maintain their position as the largest operating entity in China's foreign trade; While the import and export to traditional markets such as the EU and the United States has recovered, China has also continued to expand the space for economic and trade cooperation, and has increasingly closer trade relations with emerging markets such as countries jointly building the "the Belt and Road".
Chen Hongna analyzed that the continued positive trend in foreign trade does not mean that risk factors can be ignored. We still need to see challenges such as a slight decline in imports in the first half of the year and fluctuations in monthly growth rates. China's foreign trade is still under pressure and moving forward.
Looking ahead to the second half of the year, He Yadong, spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce, stated that the situation facing China's foreign trade development is still quite complex. The main manifestation is that the external demand growth trend is not stable, and the strength and sustainability of inventory replenishment in major markets need to be observed. In addition, there are increasing interference factors such as geopolitics, trade barriers, and shipping prices, and enterprises still face a lot of uncertainty in accepting orders and fulfilling them.
Currently, China's open door is getting wider and wider, and the industrial foundation, factor endowment, and innovation capability of foreign trade development are increasingly strengthened. New driving forces and advantages in foreign trade are constantly being cultivated. Chen Hongna stated that whether it is accelerating the negotiation process of multilateral trade agreements, creating a favorable development environment for foreign trade exports, or encouraging innovative development of new forms of foreign trade represented by cross-border e-commerce, market procurement, etc., and accelerating the digitalization process of foreign trade enterprises, all of these provide stronger support for the structural adjustment and optimization of foreign trade, and the foundation for achieving the goal of "quality improvement and quantity stability" in foreign trade for the whole year is more solid.
