China's foreign trade and foreign investment 'will remain stable in the future'

As the policy effects continue to emerge, new progress has been made in market diversification, and enterprises'coping ability has been enhanced, China's foreign trade and foreign investment has the basis and conditions for sustained and stable growth. 

on July 2, the Ministry of Commerce held a special conference to introduce the relevant situation of "stabilizing foreign trade, stabilizing foreign investment and promoting consumption". "Generally speaking, China's foreign trade and foreign investment have the basis and conditions for sustained and stable growth, that is to say, it has been stable in the past, now, and will be stable in the future," said Chu Shijia, Director of the General Department of the Ministry of Commerce at the release meeting.

Store-keepers introduced that from more than a year's actual operation, China's foreign trade withstood the pressure in 2018, reached a new record high, and foreign investment achieved adverse growth against the background of a sharp decline in international investment. Since this year, on the basis of last year's high base, foreign trade and foreign investment have continued to grow steadily. In May, the growth rate of exports and foreign investment was still faster than in the previous four months, which fully illustrates the enormous resilience of China's economy. The reservists pointed out that there are three main reasons for this: first, the policy effect continues to show. This year, the number of foreign trade enterprises has not decreased, but is still growing. From January to May, 330,000 enterprises with import and export performance, an increase of 6.6% over the same period of last year. Second, new progress has been made in market diversification. China has trade relations with 232 countries and regions. Since this year, China's market share in major economies such as the European Union, Japan, Brazil, Russia and South Africa has increased. Thirdly, the coping ability of enterprises has been strengthened. At present, enterprises actively respond by reducing costs, increasing research and development, and diversification of the market, with more ways and more confidence.

"Stabilizing foreign trade and foreign investment is to take into account the overall international economic and trade environment and domestic realistic conditions, strive to maintain stable development of foreign trade and foreign investment, and make more contributions to the sustainable and healthy development of the national economy." Taking the industrial chain as an example, the reservists pointed out that the industrial chain is not fixed, but dynamic adjustment. On the one hand, there are new domestic industrial chains such as 5G, as well as foreign industrial chains such as Tesla. On the other hand, enterprises will take the initiative to "go global" layout according to their own development needs. When discussing domestic consumption, Wang Bin, deputy director of the Department of Market Operation of the Ministry of Commerce, pointed out that the consumer market has been running smoothly this year. The growth rate, network consumption, service consumption, basic consumption and consumption price all reflect a "stable" character. The total retail sales of consumer goods increased by 8.6% in May, 1.4 percentage points faster than in April. The cumulative growth in the first five months was 8.1% year-on-year, and it is expected to continue to recover steadily in June. Wang Bin pointed out that the retail sales growth of consumer goods in the first half of the year is expected to reach 8.2%, which is still in the middle and high speed growth range. This growth rate has been achieved against the background of increasingly complex international economic and trade environment and on the basis of a high base of 400 billion yuan. From a worldwide perspective, China's consumption growth is still in the forefront. At the same time, we should also see that the overall consumer market is still in a downward trend. In response to the changes in the consumer market, the state has introduced a series of measures to reduce taxes and fees, expand the opening up, and a series of policies to promote consumption have been introduced in various places, especially for key commodities such as automobiles, household appliances and other specific measures to promote consumption. It is understood that the Ministry of Commerce recently held a national on-site meeting to promote consumption upgrading in Shanghai, and fully deployed the key work in 2019. The next step is to focus on improving the urban and rural market system, smoothing the circulation channels of agricultural products, improving the quality of goods and services, and optimizing the market business environment. In response to a question from a reporter of the Economic Daily about the FTA pilot area, Tang Wenhong, Director of the Foreign Investment Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said that the relevant work was being actively promoted on the establishment of six FTA pilot areas and a new area of Shanghai FTA pilot area, and that clear information would be notified at the first time.

Tang Wenhong also said that the Ministry of Commerce is now learning from the advanced management methods and methods of international free trade ports in accordance with the requirements of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council to explore more flexibility in foreign trade, investment and financing, fiscal and taxation, financial innovation, entry and exit. Policy system, supervision mode and management system are also being actively promoted. He said that Hainan Free Trade Port will become a new reform and opening-up highland which not only shows Chinese characteristics, but also conforms to Hainan's development orientation, has a higher level of openness, a better business environment and a stronger radiation effect. The research on the framework of relevant policies and systems is also in progress.

A few days ago, China issued two negative lists of the national and free trade pilot zones in the 2019 edition, further expanding the opening up of agriculture, mining, manufacturing and service industries. After five revisions in the past six years, the negative list of foreign investment access has been reduced from 190 articles six years ago to 40 articles in the national edition and 37 articles in the FTA edition. Tang Wenhong said that in order to coordinate with the smooth implementation of the negative list, the Ministry of Commerce is currently comprehensively clearing up the restrictions on foreign investment access beyond the negative list and strictly implementing the "non-prohibited access".