Foreign trade is one of the "troika" that drives the economy and a "barometer" for observing the vitality of opening up.

The "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reforms and Promoting Chinese-Style Modernization" reviewed and approved by the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to build a new higher-level open economic system, clarified "deepening the reform of the foreign trade system", and made "strengthening Trade policy coordination with fiscal, taxation, finance, and industrial policies","actively responding to the trend of trade digitalization and greening","innovating and improving service trade" and other deployments.

In the past few days, Xinhua Agency reporters have found during surveys in major foreign trade provinces and key industries that various localities and departments have adhered to the combination and promotion of deepening reform and expanding opening up, and promoted high-quality development of foreign trade through innovation, response, quality improvement and upgrading to promote a better structure, stronger vitality, and bigger space.

Optimize the structure and stabilize the fundamentals of foreign trade

This summer, the temperature has soared in tandem with China's sporting goods export boom.

"This football is implanted with a chip and can perform 500 recognition actions in one second. It uses real-time data to assist in determining whether it is handball, offside, etc." Zhou Hongda, general manager of Dinger Sports Goods (Huaian) Co., Ltd., told reporters.

Since the beginning of this year, this company has exported 4.07 million balls for European Cup, America's Cup, Olympic Games and other events and training balls, and has foreign trade orders in hand until the end of the year.

Data from the General Administration of Customs show that in the first half of the year, China's exports of sporting goods and equipment increased by 16.7% year-on-year, 9.8 percentage points higher than the overall export growth rate during the same period.

This is a microcosm of foreign trade companies relying on technological innovation to seize opportunities in the international market.

"The 'report card' of foreign trade exceeded expectations, and further optimization of the structure of export products was an important factor." Ni Yueju, a researcher at the Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said.

In the first seven months, China's total import and export value of goods trade increased by 6.2% year-on-year, and the monthly growth rate remained above 5% for four consecutive months. Among them, while the monthly export value of home appliances, mobile phones, and computers continued to grow, the export of wind turbines, ships, and automobiles grew rapidly, with year-on-year increases of 86.3%, 84.4%, and 20.7% respectively.

Cars produced by SAIC Motor's passenger car base in Fujian that are ready to be exported are parked in the customs supervision area of Jiangyin Port Area of Fuzhou Port, waiting to be loaded (Photo taken on March 12, 2024, drone photo). Photo by Xinhua Agency reporter Lin Shanchuan

In the first half of the year, sales of new energy models such as SAIC Chase's Xintu EV90 ranked among the top in the market in many European countries. In the coming September, SAIC Chase will launch its new high-end pure electric pickup truck in the European market.

After the EU imposed temporary countervailing duties on pure electric vehicles imported from China in early July this year, China's automobile export situation has attracted much attention.

"Even in the face of a series of external constraints and impacts, our new energy products are still highly competitive in the European market." The relevant person in charge of SAIC Chase said that in the second half of the year, it will still focus on mid-to-high-end developed markets, and will also deploy more incremental markets.

Under multiple challenges, it is not easy for China to continuously optimize its foreign trade structure and take new steps in market diversification.

"Behind the recovery of foreign trade, there are objective factors such as improvement in external demand, but factors such as significant competitive advantages in the industrial chain system, strong innovation momentum and strong policy support have played an important supporting role." Zhao Fujun, director of the Comprehensive Research Office of the Department of Foreign Economic Research of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said.

Introduce policies and measures to stabilize the scale and optimize the structure of foreign trade, focusing on the stability of the scale and innovative development of foreign trade; firmly implement the strategy of expanding domestic demand and further tap domestic consumption potential; increase fiscal and financial support and implement a series of tax reduction and fee reduction policies; further leverage export credit insurance The role is to prevent risks, make up for losses, promote financing, and expand markets... a series of policy "combination punches" to help enterprises adjust industrial structures, stabilize traditional markets, and expand emerging markets.

In the first seven months, China's foreign trade business entities with import and export performance reached 609,000, a year-on-year increase of 8.8%. Among them, private enterprises accounted for more than 80%, the number increased by 10%, and the total import and export increased by 10.9% year-on-year. A survey by the Ministry of Commerce of 16,000 key foreign-invested foreign trade enterprises shows that more than 70% of the enterprises expect exports to increase throughout the year.

Innovate business formats and cultivate new competitive advantages

Recently, at Dajiang E-Commerce Co., Ltd. in Shan Tou City, Guangdong Province, anchors were busy "bringing goods" for their own carpet mats in dozens of live broadcast rooms. In the first half of the year, the company's sales in the e-commerce channel exceeded 80 million yuan, close to last year's full-year sales, and led the performance in the carpet category on the Amazon platform.

"Cross-border e-commerce is very critical for us to expand our market share, and it can be said to be imperative." Lin Jianqun, deputy general manager of the company's marketing, said that the company has established a company in Shenzhen to independently operate the cross-border e-commerce sector and is accelerating the expansion of emerging markets in Southeast Asia such as Thailand through cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Shopee and Lazada.

The truck is waiting for customs inspection at the Chuanhua Shanghe Cross-Border E-commerce Supervision Center (photo taken on July 3, 2024). Photo by Xinhua Agency reporter Li Ziheng

Against the background of pressure on traditional trade, cross-border e-commerce, as a new foreign trade format, has become a new channel for many small and medium-sized enterprises to expand the international market by virtue of its advantages of breaking through regional restrictions and shortening the transaction chain. In the first half of the year, China's cross-border e-commerce import and export growth rate reached 10.5%, which was 4.4 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of foreign trade.

Li Xingqian, director of the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said that judging from the performance of imports and exports in the first half of the year, foreign trade has made positive progress in four aspects: cross-border e-commerce, green trade, trade digitalization and expansion of imports. At the same time, this is also the focus of cultivating new momentum for foreign trade.

This is the intelligent warehousing and logistics center of the Heihe Cross-Border E-commerce Park located in the Heihe Area of the China (Heilongjiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone taken on January 31, 2024. Photo by Xinhua Agency reporter Xie Jianfei

The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China focused on "actively responding to the trend of digitalization and greening of trade","promoting regulatory innovations such as customs clearance, taxation, and foreign exchange, and creating an institutional environment conducive to the development of new business formats and new models","innovating and developing digital trade, and promoting Cross-border Specific arrangements have been made in aspects such as the construction of a comprehensive e-commerce pilot zone.

At the 4th China Cross-Border E-commerce Fair held in Fuzhou, visitors visited in front of the TikTok Shop Ecological Zone booth (photo taken on March 18, 2024). Photo by Xinhua Agency reporter Lin Shanchuan

The Ministry of Commerce and other nine departments recently jointly issued the "Opinions on Expanding Cross-Border E-commerce Exports and Promoting the Construction of Overseas Warehouses". Guangzhou promotes the implementation of the reform of electronic payment of cross-border e-commerce taxes, and Hangzhou deepens the cross-customs-area return of cross-border e-commerce bonded imported goods. Pilot projects, Qingdao supports the construction of public warehousing... From the central to local governments, a series of policies aim at difficult points, promote cross-border e-commerce to become better and stronger, and respond to challenges and seize opportunities.

In line with the new trends of the digital economy and new needs for sustainable development, digitalization and greening have become the new background for the development of foreign trade.

Not long ago, the Hainan Free Trade Port's multi-functional free trade account was officially opened, making cross-border capital flow more free and convenient. The transaction capital equivalent to more than 4.6 billion yuan in more than a month after it was launched.

"In the past, paying a fee to an overseas partner might take one to two days from initiating a remittance application to submitting a contract and invoice review. Now it can be completed in a few minutes!" A company official who has opened an account and completed business processing said.

Actively promote the application of digital technology in the field of trade, and the proportion of paperless goods in some ports reaches 90%; support local governments and enterprises to explore ways to realize the digitalization of the entire trade chain, and guide foreign trade entities to more proactively carry out digital transformation; a total of 39 countries have reached the "International Economic and Trade Cooperation Framework Initiative for Digital Economy and Green Development"... Under a series of reform measures, China's trade digitalization and greening have accelerated.

"In the process of deepening the reform of the foreign trade system, we must more effectively use digitalization and green trends to promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional foreign trade, and thereby enhance China's position in the global industrial chain and value chain." Xu Hongcai, deputy director of the Economic Policy Committee of the China Policy Science Research Association, said.

Expand opening up and open up new space for development

On the morning of August 1, a buyer from Spain came to Qi County, Shanxi Province and signed a new order for a water pipe pot worth US$180,000.

Li Jiansheng, chairman of Qi County Honghai Glass Co., Ltd., told reporters that the Spanish businessman was a new customer met at the Canton Fair this year."With the accelerated resumption of international flights and the implementation of more visa-free policies, we have more exchanges with overseas customers."

This company's glass products have inherited more than 100 years of manual blown glass intangible cultural heritage skills. 60% are exported to Arab countries, and some are sold to Russia and other countries. In the past five months, sales have increased by about 20% year-on-year.

Intangible cultural heritage handicrafts from a small central city are exported to larger overseas markets, which is a vivid footnote to China's opening up.

From the perspective of the international market, in the first seven months, China's total imports and exports to the European Union, the United States, South Korea, and Japan increased by 2.2% year-on-year; the total imports and exports to ASEAN, Central Asia, Latin America, and Africa increased by 9.8% year-on-year, accounting for an increase of 1 percentage points compared with the same period last year; imports and exports to countries co-building the Belt and Road Initiative and other member states of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) increased by 7.1% and 5.7% respectively year-on-year.

From the perspective of domestic regions, in the first seven months, the eastern, central and western regions gave full play to their respective location characteristics and industrial advantages, and imports and exports increased by 7.1%, 2.5%, and 2.1% respectively year-on-year.

The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to improve the system and mechanism of high-level opening up to the outside world, and clearly stated that "expand independent opening up, orderly expand the opening up of my country's commodity markets, service markets, capital markets, labor markets, etc., and expand unilateral opening up to the least developed countries." Opening up "guides the development of my country's foreign trade and opens up new development space.

Promote trade in services and expand new space for open innovation cooperation--

Foreign tourists visit Chongqing Dazu Stone Carving Scenic Area (photographed on July 19, 2024). Photo by Xinhua Agency reporter Wang Quanchao

Recently, a foreign blogger's "city is not city" video has become popular all over the Internet. Behind this is the significant warming up of China's inbound tourism market.

Faced with a complex and severe external environment, trade in services has shown greater resilience. In the first half of the year, China's total import and export of services increased by 14% year-on-year. Among them, travel services increased by 47.7% year-on-year, making it the largest area of service trade.

Release the national version and the free trade pilot zone version of the negative list for cross-border service trade, deepen the construction of a comprehensive demonstration zone for expanding the opening up of the national service industry, issue opinions on promoting high-quality development of service consumption, and continue to expand the scope of visa-free countries... China continues to promote exchanges and cooperation in the fields of humanities, commerce, and science and technology.

Actively expand imports and share new opportunities in China's large market with the world--

At the pre-exhibition supply and demand matchmaking meeting in the technical equipment and automobile exhibition area of the 7th CIIE, exhibitor staff (right) introduced corporate products to buyers (photo taken on August 8, 2024). Published by Xinhua Agency (Photo by Chen Haoming)

It is less than 90 days before the opening of the seventh CIIE. So far, the contracted exhibition area has exceeded 360,000 square meters, and more than 150 companies have signed contracts for seven consecutive years.

From "selling the world" in the past to expanding imports to "buying the world", China's pace of independent opening up has been rapid and steady. In the first seven months, China's imports were 10.57 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%.

Audiences visited the Consumer Expo (photo taken on April 18, 2024). Photo by Xinhua Agency reporter Guo Cheng

Hold key exhibitions such as the Consumer Expo, the China International Import Expo, and the Canton Fair, expand the global high-standard free trade zone network, and promote the negotiation process of free trade agreements with relevant countries and regions...

This is the venue of the 135th Canton Fair taken on April 15, 2024. Photo by Xinhua Agency reporter Liu Dawei

"Our country has a super-large market, with rich and diverse demands, and rapid release of market potential. It will continue to provide support for imports, and will also benefit the world more and more widely." Wang Lingjun, deputy director of the General Administration of Customs, said.

Reform will not stop, and opening up will not stop. As China firmly deepens reform and opening up and insists on promoting high-quality development, foreign trade continues to accumulate new momentum and its progress is unstoppable.

Written reporters: Xie Xiyao, Zou Duowei, Tang Shining

Poster design: Jiang Zihan, Luan Ruohui

Coordinator: Zhou Wenlin, Jin Yu, Gao Xinxin, Nie Yi