During the year, it crossed the two steps of US $5 trillion and US $6 trillion, and its scale reached an all-time high; Imports and exports to Europe, America, Japan and other economies increased by 17.5%; There are 567000 import and export performance enterprises, an increase of 36000, and the endogenous power is further increased... China's foreign trade handed over a bright report card in 2021, showing strong toughness.

Experts and enterprises interviewed said that in the opening year of the 14th five year plan, China's foreign trade achieved strong growth in multiple tests, and the stability of the industrial chain supply chain was further enhanced, laying a solid foundation for meeting challenges and dealing with uncertainty. Superimposed with a series of targeted measures, early arrangement and early force will effectively stabilize the expectations and confidence of foreign trade enterprises and win greater initiative for the improvement and upgrading of foreign trade throughout the year.

The scale of two steps has reached an all-time high

Li Kuiwen, spokesman of the General Administration of customs and director of the statistics and analysis department, said at the press conference of the state information office that in 2021, China will calmly respond to the Centennial changes and the epidemic situation in the century, promote deep-seated reform with a high level of opening-up, promote high-quality development, maintain a global leading position in economic development and epidemic prevention and control, achieve rapid growth in foreign trade import and export, achieve a new high scale and steadily improve quality.

According to customs statistics, the total import and export value of China's goods trade in 2021 was 39.1 trillion yuan, an increase of 21.4% over 2020. Among them, the export was 21.73 trillion yuan, an increase of 21.2%; Imports reached 17.37 trillion yuan, an increase of 21.5%. Compared with 2019, China's foreign trade import and export, export and import increased by 23.9%, 26.1% and 21.2% respectively. In terms of US dollars, it crossed the two steps of US $5 trillion and US $6 trillion and reached an all-time high.

New progress has been made not only in scale but also in quality improvement. In terms of business forms, in 2021, China's cross-border e-commerce exports increased by 24.5% year-on-year, and market procurement exports increased by 32.1%. The new business forms and new models have developed rapidly and become a living force for the development of China's foreign trade; In terms of import and export structure, in 2021, China's import and export proportion of general trade increased by 1.6 percentage points, and nearly 60% of export products are mechanical and electrical products; In terms of regional distribution, the import and export of China's central and western regions reached 6.93 trillion yuan, an increase of 22.8%, 1.4 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of China's foreign trade in the same period; Among the trading partners, imports and exports to Europe, America, Japan and other economies increased by 17.5%, and imports and exports to Latin America and Africa increased by 31.6% and 26.3% respectively.

'China joins hands with its trading partners to jointly maintain the stability of the global industrial chain and supply chain and jointly contribute to the recovery of the world economy.' Li Kuiwen said.

In this process, the international market share of China's foreign trade has also made new breakthroughs. According to the latest data, in the first three quarters of 2021, China's export international market share was 14.9%, an increase of 0.6 percentage points year-on-year and 3.8 percentage points compared with 2012. This increase is just equivalent to China's export international market share in 2000 at the beginning of the century.

At the same time, the international market share of China's imports has steadily increased to 12.1% in the first three quarters of 2021 since it first exceeded 10% in 2013, an increase of 0.5 percentage points year-on-year. 'This reflects the great achievements we have made in reform and opening up in the new era.' Li Kuiwen said.

Early layout and multiple policy deployment

After achieving a good start, China's foreign trade is still striving for a torrent. Li Kuiwen said that this year's foreign trade is facing more uncertain, unstable and unbalanced factors. China's economic development faces the triple pressure of shrinking demand, supply shock and weakening expectation.

Li Kuiwen pointed out that while facing these difficulties and challenges, we should also see that China's economic resilience and long-term fundamentals will not change, and continue to provide strong support for stabilizing foreign trade.

Policy support is also further strengthened. Li Kuiwen said that in the next step, the General Administration of Customs will continue to deepen the reform of 'release, control and service' in accordance with the requirements of boosting the confidence of foreign trade market subjects, optimize the port business environment, promote the relief of enterprises and restore development, and more stimulate the vitality and endogenous driving force of foreign trade market subjects.

More cross cyclical adjustment and stable foreign trade policies have been put on the agenda. The reporter of economic information daily learned that recently, relevant departments have successively deployed support measures to strive for early arrangement and early landing, spare no effort to rescue and solve difficulties for foreign trade enterprises, help enterprises better grasp orders and expand the market, and escort the steady growth of foreign trade in 2022.

The executive meeting of the State Council proposed to further expand opening-up, launch response measures to difficulties and challenges, do a good job in cross cycle adjustment, help enterprises rescue, especially support small, medium and micro enterprises, strive to maintain orders and stabilize expectations, and promote the steady development of foreign trade.

The subsequent national business teleconference in 2021 proposed to strengthen cross cycle adjustment, implement stable foreign trade policies and promote innovative development of foreign trade when deploying the key work in 2022.

Recently, the general office of the State Council issued the opinions on doing a good job in cross cycle regulation and further stabilizing foreign trade, and launched 15 measures from the aspects of strengthening fiscal, tax and financial policy support, further encouraging the development of new forms of foreign trade, alleviating the pressure of foreign trade supply chain such as international logistics, and supporting key industries and key enterprises.

At the same time, the regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement (RCEP), the world's largest free trade agreement, entered into force on January 1. The Ministry of Commerce, together with the relevant departments involved in the agreement, is promoting the promulgation of the guiding opinions on the high-quality implementation of RCEP as soon as possible to help local governments and enterprises make better and full use of RCEP rules and grasp the opportunities of market opening.

Confidence is enhanced, and stable quantity and quality improvement can be expected in 2022

Supported by a series of positive factors, the market's expectation of steady growth of foreign trade in 2022 has been strengthened. Tang Jianwei, chief researcher of the financial research center of the Bank of communications, pointed out that looking forward to the foreign trade situation from January to February, the European and American economies are still in the expansion range, which will form a certain support for China's exports, and China's export boom will continue for some time; In terms of import, it mainly focuses on the changes in international commodity prices and domestic demand factors such as energy and automobile chips. It is expected that the import will remain at a certain scale from January to February.

Wang Qing and Feng Lin, analysts of Dongfang Jincheng, also believe that considering the law of the Spring Festival and the current import and export volume and price momentum, the export volume is expected to maintain a high growth rate of about 20% in January 2022; In terms of import, although the import growth base increased significantly by 21 percentage points in January last year, under the background of increasing domestic steady growth and accelerating infrastructure investment, the import demand of bulk commodities is expected to expand, and the import volume in January is still expected to reach about 25% year-on-year.

The stability of fundamentals and policy support have further enhanced the expectations and confidence of foreign trade enterprises. The reporter learned that many enterprises seek transformation and upgrading from product upgrading, channel exploration, market development and other aspects to enhance their international competitiveness.

For example, Shengwei International Holdings (China) Co., Ltd. is working overtime to improve new products according to the needs of overseas customers, striving to complete proofing before the Spring Festival and start mass production in March. Wang Lei, vice chairman of the board of directors of the company, told the economic information daily that the survival of the fittest in the market will intensify in the future. Entity enterprises with core technologies will have strong competitiveness and obtain huge business opportunities.

XCMG Construction Machinery Group Import and Export Co., Ltd. aims at the new opportunities brought by RCEP tax rate preference and rules of origin, and strengthens the development of international market. The person in charge of the company said that the origin business experts of Xuzhou customs have repeatedly interpreted how to make full use of RCEP's advantages at both ends of production and marketing to establish a more refined and perfect supply chain and industrial chain division system in the Asia Pacific region, which coincides with the group's 'going global' strategy.

Zhu Caihua, Professor of the Institute of international economics of the University of international business and economics, said that as an accelerator to help economic transformation and upgrading, foreign trade development needs to comply with the new development trend, fully tap the new potential in the new trend, seek breakthroughs in products, models, channels and markets, and create new competitive advantages in China's foreign trade under the new development pattern.