The growth of foreign trade in the whole year may be "front low, medium stability, and high later"

 

Ministry of Commerce spokesman Shen Danyang said on the 15th that China ’s import and export growth in April was generally in the expected range, and the foreign trade situation was still severe. If the world economy does not deteriorate further, and foreign demand does not undergo a major reversal, the growth of foreign trade in the whole year may present a "low, medium, and high" trend.

 

Customs data show that in the first four months of this year, China ’s total value of imports and exports was 11.67 billion US dollars, an increase of 6% year-on-year, and continued to fall from the first quarter. Among them, exports were US $ 59.24 billion, an increase of 6.9%; imports were US $ 573.94 billion, an increase of 5.1%.

 

Shen Danyang analyzed that multiple factors have caused a relatively slow growth in foreign trade since the beginning of this year, including shrinking external demand, rising domestic factor costs, and increasing trade friction.

 

"The external demand situation is lower than we expected, and worse, especially the demand of the European Union, which is China's largest trading partner, has fallen sharply." Shen Danyang said that in April, China ’s exports to the EU had a negative growth of 2%, which meant that As a result, China ’s exports to the European Union have declined year-on-year for the fourth consecutive month, which has a great negative impact on the overall growth of China ’s exports.

 

In addition, due to the decline in commodity prices in the international market, the prices of Chinese exports fell in April compared with March. In addition to the Qingming Festival and the May Day holiday, the decrease in working days was also one of the factors affecting foreign trade.

 

In response to the decline in import growth, Shen Danyang pointed out that there are three major factors: first, the slowdown in domestic demand; second, the slowdown in processing trade growth; and third, the decline in commodity prices.

 

However, Shen Danyang emphasized that this year's China's foreign trade has shown a relatively slow growth rate, partly because China's foreign trade development has entered a new stage, and it is the result of proactive policy regulation and accelerated transformation of foreign trade development methods.

 

He said that China's foreign trade structural adjustment continued to make significant progress this year. From the perspective of the product structure, high-tech, high value-added product exports increased in April. For example, automatic data processing equipment increased by 10.6%, handheld wireless phones and their components increased by 28.3%, electric motors and engines increased by 10.5%, and precious metal jewelry increased. 134%, while the export of labor-intensive products such as lamps, watches, plastic products, bicycles, furniture, etc. increased by more than 10%. Among them, the proportion of exports of products with independent intellectual property rights or independent brands has steadily increased.

 

From the perspective of market structure, exports to BRICS countries and some other emerging countries continue to maintain a good momentum of development. From January to April, China ’s exports to Russia increased 14.3%, to Brazil 13.3%, to Thailand 20%, and to Indonesia 11.3%.

 

Customs data show that China's trade surplus reached 18.42 billion US dollars in April.

 

Shen Shenyang said that in the first quarter, China's trade surplus totaled only US $ 670 million, which was the smallest in the same period in more than a decade. This shows that the foreign trade import and export have become more balanced. The sudden and large increase in the surplus in April is somewhat contingent, mainly due to factors such as falling import prices and does not represent the trend for the entire year.

 

He said that this year's foreign trade may be basically balanced with a slight surplus, and the surplus will narrow further than last year. In the next few months, imports and exports may show fluctuations in the balance line. Individual monthly surpluses and individual monthly deficits are normal.

 

When answering questions about the trend of foreign trade throughout the year, Shen Danyang said that as long as we implement the policy of stabilizing the growth of foreign trade and strive to do a good job, we are still confident and hopeful to achieve the foreign trade development goals set for the year.