Xinhuanet, Beijing, June 25th. International market demand is sluggish, the RMB appreciates significantly against major currencies other than the US dollar, and labor costs increase... Under the new normal of the economy, China's foreign trade situation is more complex and severe.

In response to these problems, the Party Central Committee and the State Council have issued a series of policy measures to stabilize foreign trade growth and optimize foreign trade structure. How are these policy measures implemented? What are the results? Recently, Xinhua News Agency reporters followed the State Council inspection team to conduct front-line investigations in relevant departments and some provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities).

Foreign trade policies to stabilize growth are gradually being strengthened

--From January 1, 2015, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation have increased the export tax rebate rates for some high value-added products, corn processing products and textiles and clothing;

--From June 1, 2015, the State Council Tariff Commission has reduced import tariffs on 14 tax numbers of clothing and other goods, with an average reduction of more than 50%;

--In October 2014 and March 2015, the Ministry of Commerce approved the implementation of parallel import car pilots in the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone and the Shenzhen Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone;

--From 2015, the incremental part of export tax rebates will be fully borne by the central government;

--From March 1, 2015, the procedures for enterprises with high tax compliance and good reputation will be simplified, and the tax rebate time will be shortened to within 2 working days.

This is a far from complete list of policies to promote foreign trade. Since last year, in response to the severe foreign trade situation, relevant departments have successively introduced a series of high-value policy measures to promote foreign trade growth, optimize foreign trade structure, and cultivate new advantages in foreign trade competition.

Reporters learned that in order to reduce the burden on import and export enterprises, since last year, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance and other departments have concentrated on carrying out special rectification and standardization work on business services and charges in the import and export links in China. According to preliminary statistics, this move has reduced the burden on enterprises by more than 4 billion yuan. The National Development and Reform Commission, together with the Ministry of Finance and other relevant departments, has vigorously cleaned up and standardized charges in the import and export links, canceled the import and export license fee and other import and export license fee items; lowered the value-added service fee standards for processing trade network enterprises and the booth fees for the 116th Canton Fair export exhibition, reducing fees by more than 110 million yuan.

Since the beginning of this year, the General Administration of Customs, the Ministry of Commerce, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and other departments have worked closely together to earnestly implement the requirements of "information exchange, mutual recognition of supervision, and mutual assistance in law enforcement", vigorously promote key reform projects in the field of port customs clearance such as "one-stop" operation, "single window", regional customs clearance integration, and paperless customs clearance, and continuously improve the level of trade facilitation. It is understood that the relevant departments are currently accelerating the pilot of paperless customs clearance for goods under automatic import license management, and have developed an electronic certificate declaration system for import and export licenses, which is scheduled to be put into trial operation in July.

Local governments have also actively introduced measures to do everything possible to promote foreign trade growth.

In Hunan, 9 industrial chain trade platforms integrating customs declaration, logistics, financing, tax rebate, credit insurance, and foreign exchange settlement have been established one after another.

In Shanghai, measures to promote foreign trade have been intensively released, such as expanding the scale and coverage of export credit insurance, optimizing export tax rebate services, increasing the import of key commodities and services, launching a pilot of parallel imported cars, and formulating several opinions on promoting the development of cross-border trade e-commerce.

In Anhui, the government supports enterprises to participate in overseas exhibitions. The national taxation department delegates the approval authority for tax exemption and refund for production enterprises to the county level. The tax refund can be processed within 2 working days if the information of Class A export enterprises is complete and correct.

One measure after another has been implemented, and the effect of promoting foreign trade has initially emerged. Data released by the General Administration of Customs on the 8th showed that although China's import and export growth rate in May was still negative year-on-year, the decline in exports continued to narrow. In some places, foreign trade has begun to show some positive signals. For example, in the first five months of this year, Hunan's total import and export value reached 68.24 billion yuan, an increase of 6.8%, an increase of 14.6 percentage points higher than that of China.

Bright spots emerge under severe situation

In this year's "Government Work Report", Premier Li Keqiang made important arrangements to promote the transformation and upgrading of foreign trade, emphasizing the need to clean up and standardize charges in import and export links, establish and publicize a list of charging items; implement policies and measures to cultivate new competitive advantages in foreign trade, promote the transformation of processing trade, develop foreign trade comprehensive service platforms and market procurement transactions, expand cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot projects, increase the number of service outsourcing demonstration cities, and increase the proportion of service trade; implement more active import policies; and accelerate the implementation of the "going out" strategy.

With the implementation of various measures to promote the steady growth of foreign trade, China's import and export trade has also seen some new highlights and new growth points under the overall severe situation.

Reporters learned from the Ministry of Commerce that although imports and exports have generally maintained a downward trend, the 0.7% increase in exports in the first five months is still higher than the global trade growth rate, and China's position as a major trading country has been further consolidated. From the perspective of commodity structure and destination market structure, there is also an optimization trend.

--China's export growth to ASEAN, Africa, Latin America and other regions is higher than the overall export growth, and the international market layout is more optimized;

--The proportion of mechanical and electrical products in the total export volume reached 57.8%, and some equipment manufacturing and high-tech products have become important growth points for exports;

--The quality and efficiency of imports have been significantly improved, and the import volume of six categories of bulk commodities such as crude oil, plastics, natural gas, pulp, grains, and copper concentrate has increased and the price has fallen, thereby reducing import payments by US$56.3 billion. "Spending less and doing more" is conducive to enterprises to reduce costs, improve operating efficiency and international competitiveness;

--The development of service trade has accelerated, and the scale of high value-added service exports has further expanded;

Under the strategic layout of the "Belt and Road Initiative", some companies with excellent technology and excellent products have grown against the trend in the export field.

Last year, an engine of Guangxi Yuchai Group successfully passed the EU certification test, becoming one of the first companies in China to pass the Euro VI certification, and successfully opened the door for domestic Euro VI engines to be exported to Europe and the United States.

From January to May this year, despite the unfavorable overall foreign trade situation, Yuchai's overseas market entry volume increased by 41.6% year-on-year, and the cumulative sales revenue exceeded 120 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 140.1%. The entry volume in the Southeast Asian market from January to April has exceeded the whole of last year.

It is particularly worth mentioning that China's equipment production capacity has developed rapidly and achieved positive results. The export of large-scale complete sets of equipment such as communications, power, and locomotives has grown rapidly, which has played an important role in boosting foreign trade exports, promoting industrial transformation and upgrading, and deepening bilateral economic and trade cooperation.

Since the beginning of this year, in order to implement the "Guiding Opinions of the State Council on Promoting International Capacity and Equipment Manufacturing Cooperation", the Ministry of Commerce, together with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, has jointly promoted the construction of overseas industrial cooperation zones to attract China's advantageous production capacity to go global. At the same time, it has strengthened cooperation with the industrial authorities of neighboring countries and emerging market countries, and done a good job in government coordination and service.

Some local governments are also taking active actions to seize the opportunities of international capacity cooperation and find new growth points for foreign trade and foreign cooperation. Since the beginning of this year, Hebei Province has actively cooperated with Bank of China and China Investment Corporation, focusing on Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, and formulated special promotion plans to promote the "going out" of advantageous industries and enterprises such as steel, cement, glass and equipment manufacturing. By the end of March, there were 650 foreign capacity cooperation enterprises in Hebei Province with a total investment of US$9.958 billion.

Through multiple measures, the rapid growth of equipment exports has become a new highlight of foreign trade. Based on the 10% year-on-year export growth of China's large-scale complete equipment in 2014, the export growth rate in January-April this year remained above 10%. Among them, the export of locomotives and vehicles and ships increased by 42.4% and 34.9% respectively. The global market share of equipment and products in the fields of electricity, communications, etc. has continued to grow. In the first four months of this year, the export volume was US$40 billion, a year-on-year increase of 10%.

The substantial growth of cross-border e-commerce is another highlight of this year's foreign trade. According to Zhang Ji, Director of the Department of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Commerce, the growth rate of cross-border e-commerce has exceeded 30% since the beginning of this year. It has become an important engine for innovation-driven development and an important channel for mass entrepreneurship and innovation.

In terms of imports, the import of advanced technology equipment and key components is encouraged by implementing the import interest subsidy policy. It is understood that this policy alone led to the import of advanced technology equipment, key components and other products worth 22.9 billion US dollars in 2014.

Cultivate new advantages in foreign trade competition

It is worth noting that the reporter found with the inspection team that although various places have actively implemented national policies, taken many measures to stabilize imports and exports, and many new highlights have emerged, the foreign trade situation this year is more complex and severe, and the downward pressure is still great.

As a major foreign trade province, Guangdong's total import and export value fell by 3.5% from January to May this year, of which imports fell by 11.8%. In the first five months, the province's foreign trade imports and exports only completed 34% of the annual progress, and the pressure on foreign trade to maintain stable growth is still relatively large. From Shanghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Jiangxi and other places, the foreign trade situation is not optimistic.

The reporter learned that foreign trade enterprises are still facing a variety of problems such as insufficient external demand, exchange rate fluctuations, rising export costs, and forced monopoly of import and export links.

The Ministry of Commerce recently conducted a questionnaire survey on nearly 6,000 enterprises, and enterprises generally reflected that the current exchange rate factor is the largest factor restricting exports. According to the questionnaire survey of 170 foreign trade enterprises in Jiangxi Province by the Department of Commerce, 100 enterprises said that they suffered exchange losses due to exchange rate fluctuations, accounting for 60%; 90 enterprises believed that the increase in labor costs led to a sharp increase in the comprehensive cost of exports, weakening export competitiveness, accounting for 56.3%, and some labor-intensive export industries were particularly prominent.

From the perspective of the foreign trade business environment, some enterprises reflected that the charges in the import and export links are still too high, mainly concentrated in the fees for business services, and there are some forced charges by monopolizing business with administrative power. From the perspective of various import and export links, it involves customs declaration, inspection, ports (terminals), banks, etc.

Xiong Meng, vice president and secretary-general of the China Federation of Industrial Economics, said that since January 1 this year, the state has increased the export tax rebate rate for some high value-added products, corn processing products and textiles and clothing, and it is recommended to further expand the product categories on this basis. For enterprises with large export volumes, the preferential margin should be expanded in a targeted manner to reduce the losses caused by exchange rate fluctuations.

"Through the optimization of export promotion policies, we can not only change the current imbalance between supply and demand of some products in the Chinese market, but also effectively reduce corporate costs." Xiong Meng said.

Faced with the severe situation and the current problems in foreign trade, some policies are being improved and some measures are being prepared to further promote the steady growth and structural adjustment of foreign trade, implement the strategy of importing and exporting high-quality products, and cultivate new advantages in foreign trade competition.

--Actively develop new trade platforms. The Yiwu market procurement trade mode pilot passed the acceptance in October 2014 and has achieved initial results. In 2014, exports reached US$19.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 31.3%; the demonstration effects of the three domestic and foreign trade combined market pilots such as Jiangsu Dieshiqiao International Home Textile City are constantly expanding;

--With the approval of the State Council, the China (Hangzhou) Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone was established. The Ministry of Commerce, together with 12 relevant departments such as the National Development and Reform Commission, stepped up their work and successively formulated supporting policies and measures to guide local governments to formulate and improve the "Implementation Plan" and actively promote the construction of the comprehensive pilot zone. The State Council Executive Meeting reviewed and approved the "Guiding Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Supporting the Healthy and Rapid Development of Cross-border E-commerce", which is a guiding document to promote the accelerated development of cross-border e-commerce under the new situation, which is conducive to promoting the realization of high-quality imports and exports, and providing new impetus for China's foreign trade and economic growth;

--Accelerate the cultivation of foreign trade independent brands, launch the "Qingfeng" action to maintain the overseas image of Made in China, and severely crack down on illegal acts of exporting infringing and counterfeit goods;

--Accelerate the development of service trade and service outsourcing.

"The Ministry of Commerce intends to work with the General Administration of Customs to study the establishment of an independent brand export statistics system, encourage foreign trade transformation and upgrading bases to cultivate regional and industry brands, and increase the overseas promotion of Chinese brands." said Zhong Shan, Vice Minister of Commerce.

He said that it is necessary to study the implementation of import interest subsidy policies for some knowledge and technology-intensive productive services, and continue to implement the zero tax rate or tax-free policy for service exports. At the same time, pilot cities for innovative development of service trade and construction of characteristic service export bases will be carried out. In the near future, efforts will be made to promote the promotion of service foreign trade demonstration cities, formulate guidance catalogues for key development areas, establish a corporate credit evaluation system, and improve statistical systems and information systems, and strive to see results as soon as possible. (Reporters Zhao Xiaohui, Li Yanxia, Du Yu, Qi Zhongxi, Liu Yizhan, Xiang Zhiqiang, Li Meijuan, Feng Lei, Zhu Feng, Ye Feng, Liu Xiangxiao)

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