In 2019, foreign trade and foreign investment both set new high consumption

On the 21st of the core reading conference, the State Council's new office held a press conference. Last year, the overall business operation was stable and made steady progress. Consumption contributes 57.8% to economic growth and drives GDP growth by 3.5 percentage points; the utilization of foreign capital has increased steadily, with 941.5 billion yuan and 5.8% increase in actual utilization of foreign capital in the whole year. More than 40000 new foreign-funded enterprises have been set up, maintaining the second largest inflow of foreign capital into the country. The structure of foreign investment has become more and more excellent, the quality of foreign investment has become higher and higher, and the "circle of friends" of foreign capital has become larger and larger. The quality of foreign trade has been improved steadily, and the goods have been imported throughout the year Exports reached 31.5 trillion yuan, an increase of 3.4%. The high-quality development of business makes positive contributions to the economic and social development. At the press conference on business work and operation in 2019 held by the new office of the people's Republic of China on the 21st, Qian Keming, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Commerce, introduced that the overall business operation of the whole year was stable, steady and progressive, the quality of consumption, foreign trade and foreign investment was improved and the scale was expanded, all of which reached a new record, the high-quality development of business achieved new results, and made positive contributions to the economic and social development.

The total retail sales of consumer goods for the whole year last year reached 41.2 trillion yuan, an increase of 8%. For six consecutive years, it has become the first driving force for economic growth, with consumption contributing 57.8% to economic growth and 3.5% to GDP growth. Chu Shijia, director of the comprehensive Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said that in 2019, China's consumer market was generally stable, the scale was steadily expanded, the structure was continuously optimized, and the basic role of consumption in economic growth was further consolidated. It mainly has the following characteristics: the consumption structure continues to upgrade. The Engel coefficient of national residents is 28.2%, decreasing for 8 consecutive years. High quality, personalized and diversified consumption is active, and products such as wearable smart devices and smart home appliances are growing rapidly. Communication equipment and cosmetics increased by 8.5% and 12.6% respectively, higher than the overall growth rate of total social zero. The potential of rural consumption continued to be released. The total retail sales of consumer goods in rural areas increased by 9%, 1.1 percentage points faster than that in urban areas. The per capita expenditure on education, culture and entertainment of rural residents maintained a double-digit growth. The demand for service consumption continued to be strong. The proportion of service consumption exceeded 50% for the first time, reaching 50.2%, an increase of 0.7 percentage points over the previous year. The catering revenue increased by 9.4%, and the service consumption of culture, tourism and health care increased rapidly. Online retail has maintained a rapid growth.

The online retail sales of physical goods increased 11.5 percentage points faster than that of social zero, contributing more than 45% to the growth of social zero, driving the National Express business volume to 63.5 billion, an increase of 25%. The vitality of market players has increased. In 2019, 15.88 million new market entities will be set up for domestic trade, with an average of 44000 per day. At the end of 2019, the proportion of domestic trade market entities accounted for 68%, ranking first in all industries. Chu said that the Ministry of Commerce will make every effort to improve urban consumption, expand rural consumption, develop service consumption and promote online consumption, accelerate the formation of a strong domestic market, and make positive contributions to building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way. In response to the reporter's question about the supply of festival market, Qian Keming said that the supply of festival market is ready, which will provide a strong guarantee for the people to celebrate the Spring Festival. Festival goods are abundant. In order to effectively increase the supply of meat in the market, the Ministry of Commerce, together with relevant departments, has formulated a two-stage plan for the supply of reserve meat, and guided local governments to strengthen the supply of reserve meat. We will strengthen the link between the organization of goods sources and the production and marketing of goods, and improve the supply capacity of the holiday market. Beijing organized 46 large-scale agricultural products (5.460, - 0.14, - 2.50%) wholesale markets and chain supermarkets to carry out joint actions to ensure the supply of vegetables for festivals. During the festival, the supply of vegetables increased by about 10% compared with that of normal days. The service supply is abundant.

To encourage and guide the normal operation of catering enterprises during the Spring Festival, Guangzhou held the activity of "food is not closed during the Spring Festival", and 2300 stores of 192 chain catering enterprises participated in the activity; hotels in Hangzhou booked more than 20000 new year's Eve meals, an increase of 17.7%. A number of measures have been introduced to ensure the supply of holiday services. Beijing has launched a campaign to ensure the supply of domestic services, and organized domestic workers to stay in service posts in the form of "shifting peak to return home". It is expected that 50000 domestic workers will stay in Beijing during the Spring Festival. Excellent promotion. Around the new growth points of holiday consumption, night consumption, green consumption and brand consumption, we organized and carried out a variety of consumption promotion activities to meet the people's personalized and diversified consumption needs. 11 pilot pedestrian streets will also organize and carry out various promotional activities during the Spring Festival. Prices were generally stable. According to the monitoring, the average wholesale prices of pork, vegetables and fruits in 100 large wholesale markets in the last week increased by 2.2%, 2.4% and 2.6% respectively compared with the previous week, and the increase was within the normal range. The prices of grain, edible oil, beef and mutton were basically the same as the previous week, while the prices of chicken and egg were 1.5% and 3.6% lower than the previous week. China was the second largest foreign capital inflow country in the world. In the last year, China actually utilized 941.5 billion yuan of foreign capital, an increase of 5.8%. More than 40000 new foreign-funded enterprises were established, maintaining the status of the second largest foreign capital inflow country.

The structure of foreign investment continued to be optimized, and the utilization of foreign investment in high-tech industries reached 266 billion yuan, an increase of 25.6%, accounting for 28.3%. Zong Changqing, director of the foreign investment department of the Ministry of Commerce, said that there were five highlights in the performance of foreign investment utilization last year: more and more market players. In the whole year, there were 41000 new foreign-funded enterprises and 112 per day. By the end of last year, the number of foreign-funded enterprises in China has exceeded 1 million, which is a landmark in the process of utilizing foreign capital and even opening to the outside world. The structure of attracting investment is becoming better and better. The service industry absorbed 681.77 billion yuan of foreign investment, an increase of 12.5%. Among them, foreign investment in information transmission, software and information technology services, leasing and business services increased by 29.4% and 20.6% respectively. Among the manufacturing industries, foreign investment in pharmaceutical manufacturing, electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing and instrument manufacturing increased by 61.3%, 41.2% and 48.2% respectively. The quality of investment is getting higher and higher. The absorption of foreign investment by high-tech industry increased by 25.6%, of which the high-tech service industry increased by 44.3%. For example, the scientific research and technical service industry increased by 68.4%, and 123 large-scale projects with contracted foreign investment of more than US $100 million increased by 78.3% year-on-year. New industries, new formats, new business models and other "three new" activities of foreign investment increased by 11.4%, powerfully promoting the transformation of new and old driving forces of China's economic development.

The layout of attracting investment is getting better and better. Foreign investment in the eastern region increased by 6.6%, accounting for 86.2% of the country's total, and played a role in stabilizing foreign investment. In recent years, the state has introduced a series of policies and measures to encourage the central and western regions and the northeast region to undertake the transfer of foreign investment, and achieved positive results. Foreign investment in the central region increased steadily, with Jiangxi and Hunan increasing by 10.3% and 43.8% respectively. In the western region, six provinces, including Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Xinjiang, Qinghai and Gansu, have achieved double-digit and above growth. The "circle of friends" of foreign investment is growing. Last year, the number of countries and regions where investment came from reached 179, an increase of 5 over the previous year. The investment in China along the "one belt and one way" and ASEAN countries increased by 36% and 40.1% respectively. Among EU Member States, investment in the Netherlands, Ireland and Sweden increased by 43.1%, 311.4% and 141.3% respectively. Zong said that last year, a series of laws and policies, including the new law on foreign investment, the State Council's 20 articles on stabilizing foreign investment, and the new negative list of foreign investment access, were issued and implemented in a row around the work of stabilizing foreign investment, continuously optimizing the business environment, effectively stabilizing the expectation of foreign investment, and boosting investment confidence. The import and export of goods reached 31.5 trillion yuan last year, an increase of 3.4%. Among them, export reached 17.2 trillion yuan, an increase of 5%, and import reached 14.3 trillion yuan, an increase of 1.6%. "Foreign trade also has several characteristics."

Qian Keming said that first, the vitality of micro main bodies has been enhanced. Currently, there are 499000 import and export performance enterprises, an increase of 6.2% over the same period in 2018. Second, the "five optimizations" and "three constructions" were further promoted. The export growth of emerging markets, central and western regions, private enterprises and general trade was faster than the overall export level. It is particularly worth noting that the proportion of import and export of private enterprises rose to 43.3%, and private enterprises became the first major body. Third, the import of consumer goods increased by 19%. The import of traditional Chinese medicine, cosmetics and aquatic products increased by 25.8%, 38.8% and 37.6% respectively, greatly enriching the market supply of consumer goods and better meeting the people's needs for a better life. Fourth, the deficit of service trade narrowed. From January to November 2019, the import and export of service trade reached 4.9 trillion yuan, an increase of 2.1%. It is expected to remain the second largest in the world for six consecutive years, and the deficit narrowed by 10.5%. The economic and trade cooperation of "one belt and one road" has achieved positive results. Last year, the trade in goods with countries along the belt and road exceeded US $1.3 trillion, an increase of 6%, accounting for 2 percentage points of the total foreign trade, reaching 29.4%. Trade channels are more open. China and the EU have 8225 trains, an increase of 29%, with a total of more than 21000 trains, reaching 18 countries and 57 cities on the European mainland. The construction process of the new land sea channel has been accelerated, and China and Singapore have started to work out bilateral cooperation plans for the construction of the new land sea channel.