As the only country in the world to maintain a positive growth in foreign trade under the spread of the epidemic, China's foreign trade report card is indeed hard won. Although China's foreign trade in the first half of the year was "full of fear and no danger", it is far from the time when we can rest assured. In the future, China's foreign trade will still be under pressure in the face of storm and storm challenges. We should have a clear understanding of this

The General Administration of Customs recently released the import and export data of the first half of the year, and used "overall better than expected" to evaluate the performance of foreign trade in the first half of the year. As the only country in the world to maintain a positive growth in foreign trade under the continuous spread of the epidemic, this report card of China's foreign trade is indeed hard won.

Although it is gratifying to have a better than expected judgment, the ups and downs of China's foreign trade since this year still make many foreign trade people unable to let go of the hardships, so that the network catchword "foreign trade is too difficult" has punctured many people's tears. The recovery of data has boosted the confidence of foreign trade enterprises, but it can not completely eliminate people's worries about the growth of foreign trade in the second half of the year. Can the steady and rising trend of foreign trade continue? How should foreign trade enterprises prepare for more challenges?

In the complex and severe external environment, uncertainty may be the only certainty. We may as well read China's foreign trade behind the figures through the four key data of foreign trade import and export in the first half of the year, and then gain more certainty in seeking opportunities in crisis and turning crises into opportunities.

The first figure is 4.3%, which is the export growth rate in June this year. Affected by the epidemic situation, China's foreign trade fell sharply in the first quarter. Since the beginning of the second quarter, with China taking the lead in controlling the epidemic situation in the world and taking the lead in resuming production in an all-round way, the import and export of foreign trade has gradually stabilized and rebounded, especially the export has been increasing for three consecutive months. In terms of the types of export commodities, the rapid growth of the export of epidemic prevention materials and "housing economy" products was an important factor driving the export recovery in the second quarter. On the one hand, it shows that China's foreign trade enterprises have high market sensitivity and adaptability, and the supply chain of foreign trade industry chain is relatively complete, which can quickly adapt to the changes of foreign demand market; on the other hand, it should be noted that there is great uncertainty in the future whether the export growth of anti epidemic materials can be sustained.

The second figure is 4.9%, which is the growth rate of foreign trade of China's private enterprises in the first half of the year. In the first half of the year, the overall decline in foreign trade, private enterprises import and export rose against the market, which played a prominent role in stabilizing the growth of foreign trade. Some data show that at present, there are more than 400000 private enterprises with import and export performance. The continuous growth of the number of private enterprises and the increasing proportion of trade are not only the important performance of strong endogenous power and development vitality of China's foreign trade, but also reflect the continuous optimization of China's business environment. However, some studies have pointed out that a considerable part of the current export growth of private enterprises is concentrated in the previous order replenishment and inventory digestion. In the second half of the year, in addition to continuing to expand the export market, exploring export to domestic sales will be a new proposition that private enterprises must face.

The third figure is 5.6%, which is the growth rate of China's foreign trade with ASEAN in the first half of the year. Thanks to the relatively good overall situation of epidemic prevention and control in ASEAN region, and the continuous deepening of bilateral economic and trade cooperation in recent years, the industrial chain cooperation represented by electronic manufacturing has become closer, so it is inevitable that the trade between China and ASEAN will grow steadily. At present, ASEAN has replaced the European Union as China's largest trading partner. This change in trade pattern reflects that there are still some obstacles in the current release of international market demand, and economic interconnection will drive closer and coordinated economic and trade relations between China and ASEAN. However, compared with the mature European and American markets, ASEAN market space still needs to be better expanded.

The fourth figure is 26.2%, which is the growth rate of China's cross-border e-commerce import and export in the first half of the year. As a new type of trade, cross-border e-commerce has achieved rapid growth by virtue of its advantages of online trading, non-contact delivery and short trading chain, and its growth rate is far higher than the overall level of foreign trade. It is a true "light cavalry" to stabilize foreign trade. Since the beginning of this year, the "difficulty in returning goods" of cross-border e-commerce exports has been effectively solved, and the "global sales" of cross-border e-commerce export enterprises has also received policy support. It is foreseeable that the advantages and potential of cross-border e-commerce will be further tapped and released in the future.

It should be said that the above four data describe the current situation of China's foreign trade development from different dimensions, to a certain extent, reflect the development trend of foreign trade in the future, but the change of the data will always lag behind the actual development. At present, the world economy is in a deep recession, and the basis for the improvement of Global trade does not exist. Therefore, China's foreign trade development environment will be more severe and complex. Although China's foreign trade in the first half of the year was "full of fear and no danger", it is far from time to rest assured. In the future, China's foreign trade will still be under pressure in the face of challenges. We should have a clear understanding of this.

Source: China Economic Network - Economic Daily