Media comment: The foreign trade situation is still complicated and grim

The foreign trade examination for the six months was better than expected, but the situation was still complicated and grim.

Transcripts are hard to come by. Through the latest interpretation of the General Administration of Customs, it is not difficult to see that the main factors supporting imports and exports are twofold: First, the speed of domestic resumption of production and recovery, domestic demand is gradually repairing, stimulating the recovery of imports; Second, the rapid export of epidemic prevention materials and medical products Rise to build the bottom for exports.

Under a series of policy blessings, the scale of imports and exports in June has returned to the level of the same period last year. However, compared with the past, the growth momentum is somewhat unconventional, and the growth foundation is not so solid, especially in the export field. In the first half of the year, traditional exports of large-scale mechanical and electrical products and labor-intensive products were still in the negative growth range.

Essentially, exports are determined by external demand. From the outside, the epidemic is still spreading around the world, the world economy is in serious recession, international trade and investment have shrunk sharply, and external demand has been sluggish. This has a huge impact on domestic export companies, especially labor-intensive export companies. These enterprises are not only the main force of China's foreign trade, but also the full employment of hundreds of millions of people.

The opposite of full employment is not unemployment. In fact, the recovery rate of domestic foreign trade companies is not low, but subject to factors such as reduced orders and increased logistics costs, employees often face the dilemma of "people do not work in the post", and income is greatly affected.

The best way to recover foreign trade is to repair the supply chain of the industrial chain and achieve market self-recycling. To stabilize the fundamentals of foreign trade, the keynote set in this year's government work report is to protect market players and to persist in opening up. To protect foreign trade enterprises is to protect employment and people's livelihood and ensure the stability of domestic demand. Persisting in opening up means to open up the supply chain of the industrial chain and open up new growth points while turning the market up.

As can be seen from the recent intensive high-level meetings and policy trends, the core of stabilizing foreign trade in the second half of the year is still to maintain market players and open to the outside world, but there are clearer implementation paths in specific areas.

For example, the main body of the insurance market is further broken down into "insurance market" and "insurance body", which correspond to specific orders such as market orders, small and medium-sized micro and labor-intensive enterprises, and financial credit support.

With regard to the security market, the national video and telephone conference on the work of stabilizing foreign trade and stabilizing foreign investment puts forward that the security market should be the most urgent task for stabilizing foreign trade, and order grabbing should be the main focus of the security market. Make good use of both domestic and international markets and support the accelerated development of new foreign trade formats and models.

With regard to the subject of insurance, the State Council Executive Meeting mentioned that new measures for stabilizing foreign trade and foreign investment should be studied and introduced, and in particular, support should be increased to protect small, medium and micro enterprises and labor-intensive enterprises. At the same time, guide financial institutions to strengthen financing support such as credit, credit guarantee, and guarantee to alleviate the liquidity difficulties of foreign trade enterprises.

In the open field, the system design and platform construction within this year have already been implemented. In terms of system, the 2020 version of the negative list of foreign investment access will be "downsizing", and the restrictions on access to finance, medical care, education and other fields will be relaxed. On the platform, the overall plan for Hainan Free Trade Port was released, and a higher level of opening has a larger test field.

These arrangements and measures together constitute the "anchor of stability". More than half of 2020, the external environment is still confusing. But we have reason to believe that the certainty of these policies can withstand the storms of the external environment and protect the basic economic and people's livelihood.