Foreign trade imports and exports continued to grow positively

Under the background of global economic downturn, China's foreign trade continues to be under pressure. According to the latest data released by the General Administration of Customs on October 14, the growth rate of China's import and export trade declined in both sides in September. The total value of foreign trade in September was 2.78 trillion yuan, down 3.3% from the same period last year, and fell to negative again after seven months. However, according to the overall situation in the first three quarters of this year, the total value of China's foreign trade import and export is 22.91 trillion yuan, an increase of 2.8% over the same period last year, and it continues to maintain positive growth.

"The external environment facing China's foreign trade development in the future is still complex and severe, and the uncertainties of instability are increasing." Li Kuiwen, Director of Statistics and Analysis Department of the General Administration of Customs, said that, however, China's foreign trade development is resilient, the general trend of optimizing foreign trade structure and accelerating power transformation has not changed, and foreign trade will continue to maintain an overall stable, stable and qualitative development trend throughout the year. Sino-US trade volume dropped by 10.3%. In September, China's total export trade was 1.53 trillion yuan, down 0.7% year on year, and the decline was 1.9 percentage points larger than last month. In dollar terms, exports fell by 3.2%.

Liu Yaxin, macro-analyst of Merchants Investment, said that due to the lack of "export rush" in August, exports in September and October will continue to be under pressure due to high cardinal factors. In addition, the global economic fundamentals are not showing a clear positive signal and do not support a significant improvement in export growth. In terms of imports, the total domestic imports in September were 1.25 trillion yuan, down 6.2% year on year, and the decline was 3.6 percentage points larger than last month. In dollar terms, imports fell by 8.5%. The CITIC Securities Research Report pointed out that considering that short-term industrial production activities are difficult to recover substantially, further decline in domestic demand will drag down the expansion of import growth decline, and the recessionary surplus is expected to continue.

Specifically, the dominant role of general trade in total import and export trade is more significant. In the first three quarters, China's general trade imports and exports amounted to 13.64 trillion yuan, an increase of 4.8%, accounting for 59.5% of China's total foreign trade value. Among them, imports of crude oil, coal and other commodities increased, while imports of pork and beef increased significantly. With the seasonal change and the expansion of demand, China imported 369 million tons of crude oil, coal and natural gas, 251 million tons and 71.222 million tons in the first three quarters, a year-on-year increase of 9.7%, 9.5% and 10%; at the same time, in the face of the capacity gap brought by the swine plague in Africa, pork and beef were imported 1326000 tons and 1132000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 43.6% and 53.4%. In the same period, affected by the trade friction between China and the United States, in the first three quarters, the total trade volume between China and the United States reached 2.75 trillion yuan, down 10.3%, 1.3 percentage points higher than last month. China's total imports and exports to the United States amounted to 619.42 billion yuan and 2.13 trillion yuan, a decline of 22.5% and 6% respectively. "It should be said that Sino-US economic and trade frictions have brought some pressure to our foreign trade." Li Kuiwen said.

It is worth mentioning that substantial progress has been made in the current Sino-US trade negotiations. On October 12, President Trump said that he would postpone the tariff of $250 billion on goods originally scheduled for 15 this month. "This consultation is the highlight of bilateral relations since the beginning of Sino-US trade frictions and the closest to an agreement." Xuan Yan Global Macroscopic Research forecasts that after the talks, Sino-US relations will probably have a stable period of at least 4-5 weeks.

"Although preliminary results have been achieved in the negotiations, the foreign trade situation in the fourth quarter is not clear because of the large variables in the negotiations and the global economic downturn. But it can be determined that the effect of foreign trade market development will offset some of the trade frictions. Bai Ming, deputy director of the International Market Research Department of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, pointed out.

The negative value of export reappearance in September is closely related to the downturn of the global economy. "OECD expects world economic growth to decline to its lowest level in 10 years due to trade frictions and other factors. In addition, the latest WTO report predicts that global trade in goods will grow by only 1.2% in 2019, down by 1.8 percentage points from 2018, which is also lower than global economic growth expectations." Li Kuiwen said.

In September, manufacturing PMI in Europe, America and other countries generally showed a downturn, and the momentum for expanding external demand was limited. On October 1, the United States, Germany, France, Italy and other countries announced the PMI index of manufacturing industry in September. Data show that except for the French manufacturing PMI, which is 50.1% on the ups and downs line, manufacturing PMI in the United States, Germany and Italy are all in the contraction range with 47.8%, 41.7% and 47.8%, and the data of the United States and Germany are the lowest since June 2009.

"The reason lies in the shrinkage of the global trade chain under the escalation of trade protectionism." Xuan Yan pointed out macroscopically. Some analysis shows that, on the whole, under the impact of external demand, the enterprise's wait-and-see mood is obvious, and the inventory cycle has not yet started.

In order to alleviate the worsening downward trend of the economy, the multinational central banks around the world loosened the economic bondage by lowering interest rates. On September 19, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 25 basis points, followed by interest rate cuts by central banks in Australia, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. In this regard, Li Chao's team of Huatai Securities macro-research said that although the global monetary policy has made adaptable adjustments and the Sino-US trade frictions show signs of gradual easing, the negative impact of the frictions may persist.

Domestically, since August this year, the onshore and offshore exchange rates of the RMB have both broken 7, peaking at 7.17 on September 3. In October, the exchange rate declined. As of October 14, the latest quotation of the onshore RMB exchange rate was 7.05. Li Yong, co-chairman of the Center for Economic Strategies between China, the United States and Europe of the China Society of International Trade, pointed out that although the RMB depreciates or stimulates exports, it is still in the present stage.