Economic talk： policy combination boxing continues to strengthen China’s foreign trade, improve quality and show toughness.

　　People’s Daily Online, Beijing, July 17 (Reporter Li Qiaochu) Recently, data released by the customs showed that in the first half of this year, the total import and export value of China’s goods trade was 20.1 trillion yuan, up 2.1% year-on-year, and the scale exceeded 20 trillion yuan for the first time in the same period of history.

　　"This breakthrough was made in the context of the complicated and severe external environment and the slowdown of global trade and investment, as well as in epidemic prevention materials and ‘ Home economy ’ Pre-production ‘ One-time pulling factor ’ It is not easy to get it in the case of fading. " On July 13th, Lv Daliang, spokesman of the General Administration of Customs and director of the Statistics and Analysis Department, said at the press conference of the State Council Office that the World Trade Organization predicted that the global trade volume of goods would increase by 1.7% this year, which was significantly lower than the average of 2.6% in the past 12 years. Trade slowdown is a common challenge faced by all economies, and the difficulties are more global. Compared with the surrounding economies with published data, China’s foreign trade still shows strong resilience, and its competitive advantage is stable and consolidated.

　　This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative and the full entry into force of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP). The great development potential released by China’s further opening up is highly anticipated.

　　Wei Song, a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of International Studies of Beijing Foreign Studies University, said in an interview with People’s Daily that the national trade and RCEP along the "Belt and Road" came into full effect and continued to help China’s foreign trade stabilize its scale, optimize its structure and expand its market, as shown in the following aspects:

　　First, the scale of foreign trade continued to expand. In the past 10 years, the proportion of China’s imports and exports to countries along the Belt and Road has increased from 25% in 2013 to 32.9% in 2022 in China. Meanwhile, in the past 10 years, the trade between China and ASEAN has grown at an average annual rate of 9.9%, which is faster than the overall average annual growth rate of China’s foreign trade by 4.3 percentage points, and ASEAN has jumped from the third largest trading partner of China to the largest trading partner. After the entry into force of RCEP, many favorable policies, such as tariff reduction and exemption, cumulative rules of origin, have been implemented, and the economic and trade exchanges between China and ASEAN have become closer.

　　Second, the foreign trade structure has been continuously optimized. In 2022, China exported 4.44 trillion yuan of intermediate products to countries along the "Belt and Road", an increase of 23.9%, accounting for 56.3% of China’s total exports to countries along the route in the same period. Among them, the exports of textiles, electronic components, basic organic chemicals and auto parts increased by 14.5%, 21.1%, 31.3% and 24.6% respectively. In the same period, the total value of imported energy products and agricultural products was 2.46 trillion yuan and 370.41 billion yuan respectively, with growth rates of 58.8% and 13.4% respectively. In 2022, China’s import and export of intermediate products to other RCEP member countries was 8.7 trillion yuan, up by 8.5%, accounting for 67.2% of the total value in the same period. China’s export of mechanical and electrical products and labor-intensive products to other RCEP member countries increased by 13.2% and 20.7% respectively. China’s import structure from RCEP countries was mainly based on simple technology and intermediate technology-intensive manufactured products, and gradually upgraded to intermediate technology and high technology-intensive manufactured products. This aspect reflects that China’s position in the global manufacturing industry chain is constantly moving towards the middle and high end; On the other hand, it also shows the continuous strengthening of the overall scale and strength of China’s manufacturing industry.

　　The third is to promote market connectivity, accelerate the restructuring of the industrial chain, and promote the construction of a new development pattern. In the past ten years, with the joint efforts of all parties, the interconnection structure of "six corridors, six roads, many countries and many ports" has basically taken shape, and a large number of cooperation projects have taken root. China has signed more than 200 cooperation documents with 140 countries and 32 international organizations to jointly build the "Belt and Road". The total trade volume of goods with countries along the route has reached 10.4 trillion US dollars, and the non-financial direct investment in countries along the route has exceeded 130 billion US dollars, promoting the development strategy with countries and regions. At the same time, with the full entry into force of RCEP, ASEAN, as China’s largest trading partner, will bring greater convenience to the flow of factors, market connectivity and industrial integration between China and ASEAN, and help to accelerate the construction of a new "double-cycle" development pattern. Driven by RCEP, China and ASEAN will help to build a more innovative, higher added value and safer and more reliable industrial chain supply chain, and then become an important part of China’s international circular system.

　　According to customs data, in the first half of this year, the import and export of China’s Pilot Free Trade Zone and Hainan Free Trade Port increased by 8.6% and 26.4% respectively, and the role of open platform played an obvious role. On the basis of institutional opening, what supporting roles do the Pilot Free Trade Zone and Hainan Free Trade Port play in stabilizing China’s foreign trade?

　　Wei Song said that the Pilot Free Trade Zone and Hainan Free Trade Port are important measures for China to optimize the business environment and create a high level of opening up, which has a huge supporting role in stabilizing foreign trade:

　　First, it is conducive to the continuous promotion of trade and investment liberalization and facilitation. China’s free trade pilot zones are determined to forge ahead and explore boldly, and have achieved remarkable results. In the past ten years, China’s Pilot Free Trade Zone has expanded from 1 to 21, forming a pilot pattern covering east, west, north and south, and replicating and popularizing 278 institutional innovations throughout the country.

　　Second, it is conducive to the international economic and trade rules of elevation standards and steadily expand institutional opening. High-level openness is embodied in institutional openness such as rules, regulations, management and standards. It is the goal of the Pilot Free Trade Zone to adapt to the new situation, grasp the new characteristics, and strive to promote the institutional opening of rules, regulations, management and standards. Over the past five years since the establishment of Hainan Free Trade Port, more than 120 institutional innovations have been launched. Driven by a series of trade facilitation measures, China’s customs clearance efficiency has been continuously improved. The overall customs clearance time for imported goods has been reduced from about 4 days in 2017 to less than one and a half days now; The overall customs clearance time for export goods has been reduced from about 12 hours in 2017 to about 1.2 hours now. At the same time, China’s total tariff level is 7.4%, which is lower than the WTO commitment of 9.8%.

　　In the first half of this year, China’s "new three kinds" exports continued to increase. The total exports of electric manned vehicles, lithium batteries and solar cells increased by 61.6%, driving the overall export growth by 1.8 percentage points. In this context, how to further cultivate and consolidate industrial advantages and continuously gather new kinetic energy of foreign trade?

　　Wei Song said: First, we should vigorously promote the structural adjustment of foreign trade and promote the coordinated development of various foreign trade business entities. Encourage leading enterprises in the industry to extend the industrial chain and improve the level of international operation. Accelerate the formation of a number of large enterprises with transnational operation capabilities that allocate factor resources and lay out market networks on a global scale. Encourage the development of innovative, entrepreneurial and labor-intensive small and medium-sized enterprises, and support enterprises to take the road of "specialization and innovation" and coordinated development with large enterprises.

　　The second is to accelerate the promotion of international competitiveness of foreign trade. Accelerate the use of modern technology to transform traditional industries, improve the quality, grade and technical content of labor-intensive products, and push traditional industries to the middle and high end. Efforts should be made to build a technological innovation system with enterprises as the main body, market as the guidance and Industry-University-Research trade as the combination. Increase investment in scientific and technological innovation and support the original innovation of enterprises. Encourage enterprises to introduce advanced technology by means of import, overseas mergers and acquisitions, international bidding, recruiting talents and attracting talents, and promote digestion, absorption and innovation. Support domestic enterprises to set up overseas R&D centers through self-construction, joint venture and cooperation. Encourage multinational corporations and overseas scientific research institutions to set up R&D institutions in China. Strengthen the comprehensive competitive advantages of equipment manufacturing industries such as electric power, rail transit, communication equipment, ships, construction machinery, aerospace and large-scale complete sets of equipment exports, and strive to expand the export of investment commodities. Further improve the international competitiveness of strategic emerging industries such as energy conservation and environmental protection, next-generation information technology and new energy. Expand the import of advanced technology and equipment, key parts and components, and promote the adjustment, optimization and upgrading of industrial structure.