I. Foreign trade situation before this year 10
From 1 to 10 this year, exports continued to maintain a high-speed growth trend, the growth rate of imports dropped significantly, and the foreign trade surplus reached a record high. According to the preliminary statistics of the customs, the total import and export value of China's foreign trade in June was 5438+0 to 5438+0 1 486 1 0 billion US dollars, which was close to the total import and export value of 20041547.9 billion US dollars, with a year-on-year increase of 24%. The import and export surplus was $80.37 billion. Among them, the export was US$ 61449 million, an increase of 31.1%; Imports were $53,465,438+$0.2 billion, an increase of 16.7%. It is estimated that the total foreign trade volume in the whole year will reach about 1.4 trillion US dollars, an increase of more than 20%, and the import and export surplus may exceed10 billion US dollars.
This year's foreign trade import and export is characterized by the rapid growth of exports and the obvious slowdown of import growth. During the period of 1- 10, the growth rate of exports decreased by 3.4 percentage points compared with the same period of last year, and the growth rate of imports decreased by 20.5 percentage points compared with the same period of last year. The sharp decline in import growth rate is rare in recent years. The reasons are as follows: firstly, domestic upstream industrial investment gradually formed production capacity, which, to a certain extent, led to the transformation of processing trade in some areas from "big import and big export" to "small import and big export". Second, compared with the same period of last year, the growth rate of domestic investment declined, and the growth rate of machinery and equipment and important raw materials imports began to slow down. 1 96,000 metalworking machine tools were imported in one month, down 8.4% year-on-year; Imported iron ore was 220 million tons, an increase of 32.2%. Considering the growth rate of more than 65,438+0,000% in the same period of 2004, the growth rate of iron ore imports dropped significantly. Third, the domestic output of some products such as automobiles and steel products has increased, and the market demand has declined. Despite the cancellation of quotas and further reduction of tariffs, imports of automobiles and steel products still fell sharply year-on-year. Fourth, the market has great expectations for RMB appreciation in the first half of this year. Driven by the expectation of RMB appreciation, international hot money flows in the form of high export price and low import price. It is this objective expectation of appreciation that has reduced the growth rate of imports in the first seven months and increased exports. With the introduction of the reform measures of RMB exchange rate formation mechanism, the RMB remained basically stable after a small appreciation, and the import growth rate in August and September and 10 accelerated significantly, with a growth rate of 23.4% in that month.
Second, the main problems in the current development of foreign trade
(A) the disadvantages brought by extensive foreign trade growth mode are increasingly prominent.
Although China has become the third largest trading country in the world, the trade scale of some advantageous products is very large, but the relative income is not much. The growth of foreign trade still mainly depends on the extensive investment of various factors, and its core competitiveness and anti-risk ability are low. According to the investigation of the Ministry of Commerce, less than 10% of China's export products have their own brands. Because the export products are at the low end of the international division of labor, with low added value and short industrial chain, their contribution to the upgrading of domestic industrial structure and national welfare is limited, and because a large number of energy resources are exported cheaply, China's safety factor is reduced, and its dependence on foreign politics and economy is increased, so a large number of problems remain at home.
(B) the pressure brought by the sharp increase in foreign trade surplus
This year, China's trade surplus may exceed $654.38+000 billion, which is more than double the historical high of $654.38+0998 of $43.5 billion. The sharp increase in trade surplus has led to the intensification of trade friction between China and its major trading partners. At the same time, due to the rapid growth of exports, the trade surplus has increased substantially, and the country's foreign exchange reserves have risen rapidly, which has increased the pressure of RMB appreciation.
What needs special attention is that China's trade surplus with the United States and Europe is too high. According to our statistics, from June 5438 to September, the surplus with the United States was $865,438+200 million, and the surplus with the European Union was $49 billion. According to American statistics, the trade surplus between China and the United States may reach $200 billion this year, $654.38+02.4 billion in 2003 and $654.38+06.2 billion in 2004. The huge trade surplus has increasingly become the focus of Sino-US economic and trade relations. The trade between China and the United States is unbalanced, and the United States has a huge deficit, which is increasing rapidly. This is an old question. With the expansion of the amount, the deficit problem is increasingly Americanized. The trade surplus between China and the United States is the main reason for restraining the appreciation of RMB, some lawmakers proposed to impose a 27.5% surcharge on products, accused China products of aggravating the unemployment of American workers, imposed restrictions on China textiles, and imposed anti-dumping on color TV sets.
(3) Trade frictions are more prominent.
In recent years, the export products originating in China have been the biggest victims of foreign anti-dumping measures. Last year, China suffered its first countervailing investigation, and the amount involved in safeguard measures doubled. In view of the increasingly diversified technical barriers to trade of China's export products, the issue of labor standards has also become one of the causes of trade friction. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Commerce, from June 5438 to August this year, in addition to 242 special restrictions on textiles, 13 countries and regions launched 44 trade remedy investigations against China, involving a total amount of15.4 billion US dollars. Among them, there were 35 anti-dumping investigations, 4 general safeguard investigations and 5 special safeguard investigations. The number of cases was basically the same as that of the same period last year, but the amount involved increased by 22.5%. Its characteristics have five aspects. First of all, the EU's anti-dumping investigation against China has a strong momentum this year, involving a total amount of US$ 900 million, accounting for 60% of the total amount involved in China's trade remedy investigation in the same period. Secondly, although the number of American anti-dumping investigations against China has decreased, the number of intellectual property investigations against China has increased day by day, and trade restrictions against China have been tightened at the institutional level by modifying anti-dumping rules and other means. Third, Indian, Turkish, South African, Colombian and other developing countries are constantly experiencing new hot spots of friction with China. Since the beginning of this year, developing countries have initiated 29 trade remedy investigations against China, accounting for 66% of the total cases. Fourthly, in July and August, China suffered five consecutive special safeguard investigations, and its demonstration effect and possible chain reaction should not be underestimated. Finally, trade friction gradually extends from the microeconomic level such as products to the macroeconomic policy, system and system level of our country.
In terms of quantity and amount, the export products subject to trade friction account for a small proportion of China's total export, but it must be noted that the products subject to trade friction are mainly strong products under full market competition, the most competitive products of China in the international market and the main source of China's trade surplus. The export of products is blocked due to trade friction, which often causes excess capacity to shift to the domestic market, which will inevitably impact the domestic market price and further narrow the already meager downstream profit margin, leading to the survival crisis of these enterprises; At the same time, the impact of labor-intensive enterprises will bring disadvantages to employment and other aspects. For example, the EU's anti-dumping against China's chemical fiber cloth has directly affected the survival of related enterprises in Shaoxing, Zhejiang and Wujiang, Jiangsu. However, encountering special protection for textiles and clothing may cause related textile and clothing enterprises to reshuffle.
(4) The export of some products with high energy consumption, high pollution and resources increased rapidly.
In the first half of this year, in order to curb the excessive growth of export of high energy consumption, high pollution and resource products, the state successively lowered or even canceled the export tax rebate rate for electrolytic aluminum, ferroalloy, steel and coal, and raised the export tariffs for yellow phosphorus and ferrosilicon. However, due to factors such as overcapacity in China, underestimation of production costs and rising prices in the international market in recent years, the export growth of some products with high energy consumption, high pollution and resources is still relatively fast. Take the export of steel raw materials as an example. In the first half of this year, China's ferroalloy exports reached 968,000 tons, an increase of 17% over the same period last year. Among them, the export of ferromanganese increased by 60.42%, ferrosilicon increased by 28.03%, ferrotungsten increased by 8.95%, ferrosilicon increased by 4,995.69%, and ferrotitanium and ferrosilicon increased by 92.38%. The export volume of pig iron was 654.38+687 million tons, an increase of 845.25%. In addition, the export volume of manganese ore, chromium ore and coke has increased. Compared with imported similar products, there is a big gap in product structure, technical content and product price of resource primary products such as ferroalloy, pig iron and billet exported by China. For example, in the first half of this year, the average price difference between steel import and export reached 346.95 USD/ton. One of the reasons for the inefficiency of China's export products is underestimating the cost of export products. Taking steel billets and ferroalloys as examples, the export price only reflects the relationship between supply and demand, but cannot fully reflect the costs of resources, environment and safety. The losses caused by the export of such products in terms of resource consumption and environmental pollution are even far greater than the gains gained from export.
(e) The persistently high prices of oil and other raw materials have adversely affected China's foreign trade.
Due to the rapid growth of oil demand, the instability of important oil-producing countries and the malicious speculation of oil futures speculators, the international crude oil price continues to rise. The high price of crude oil has a great negative impact on China's foreign trade development and even the whole growth. In addition to crude oil, the prices of primary products such as agricultural products and mineral products are also high. This increases the production cost of manufacturing industry and brings inflation risk. The price increase of raw materials or upstream products will drive the price increase of semi-finished products, finished products or downstream products to a certain extent. For example, the rise in crude oil prices has driven up the prices of some petrochemical products such as ethylene, naphtha, gasoline and PVC; The rising price of natural rubber also drives the price of tires to rise; The rising prices of scrap steel, coke and iron ore have aggravated the rising prices of steel products to some extent.
Third, the impact of exchange rate mechanism reform on foreign trade.
From July 2 1, China began to implement a managed floating exchange rate system based on market supply and demand, and the RMB appreciated by 2% against the US dollar. Generally speaking, the positive impact of RMB exchange rate adjustment is greater than the negative impact.
From the positive impact, first, the adjustment of RMB exchange rate is conducive to alleviating the imbalance of foreign trade, improving the terms of trade and expanding domestic demand. Secondly, it is beneficial for enterprises to change their management mechanism, enhance their independent innovation ability, accelerate the transformation of foreign trade growth mode, and improve their international competitiveness and anti-risk ability. This exchange rate mechanism reform will reduce the profits of some enterprises, and one dollar of export proceeds will affect RMB 0.16. But this small adjustment can be made up by raising the selling price and reducing the production management cost. According to the current trend of small exchange rate changes, the export situation will not deteriorate in the second half of this year. Third, the appreciation of RMB is beneficial for China to import raw materials and energy products. In terms of industries, the import of rubber, logs, pulp, wool, copper ore, plastics, crude oil and non-ferrous metals is sensitive to the exchange rate. The appreciation of RMB exchange rate will reduce the import price of RMB, which will lead to an increase in imports. However, the appreciation of the exchange rate will not bring about a significant increase in the import of manufacturing products, because the import substitution effect of these products is outstanding.
On the negative side, it will have a certain impact on traditional export industries such as textiles and home appliances, but the impact is limited. When RMB appreciates, export-oriented industries will suffer exchange losses when export income is converted into RMB, as well as losses caused by reduced export volume. As far as the industry is concerned, the export of textiles and household appliances has been competing in the domestic and foreign markets, relying on exports for a long time, taking price as a means of competition, and the profits are generally low, which will face the impact of falling income. Among them, the textile industry, especially the garment industry with high export dependence, is most negatively affected by the appreciation of RMB. The profit rate of some enterprises in these industries is only 2% to 3%, and the appreciation of RMB against the US dollar limits the digestion ability of these enterprises. For textile export enterprises, the appreciation of RMB will undoubtedly have a certain impact on the export of textile enterprises, and some small and medium-sized enterprises that rely on low value-added products and low-price competition are facing bankruptcy.
Four, the impact of the reform of export tax rebate mechanism on foreign trade
Since the beginning of 2004, China has reformed the export tax rebate mechanism, which is generally successful, but there are also some problems in the implementation process. The main reason is that the sharing mechanism of export tax rebate between the central and local governments is not reasonable. Before 2004, all export tax rebates were borne by the central government. After the reform, the part exceeding the base was jointly borne by the central and local governments. Although the new mechanism bears the export tax rebate according to the proportion of the central and local value-added tax sharing, this practice is very unfavorable to the cross-regional procurement and flow of export products, artificially strengthening the restrictions of administrative divisions on the free cross-border flow of goods.
In August this year, the State Council decided to improve the existing mechanism on the premise that the central and local governments should share the burden of export tax rebate, and it will be implemented from June 65438+ 10/day, 2005. Adjust the proportion of central and local export tax rebates from 75: 25 to 92.5: 7.5. This reform will greatly reduce the pressure on local governments' fiscal expenditure, solve the contradiction between the central and local governments on export tax rebate, and effectively alleviate the contradiction that "the greater the export tax rebate, the greater the pressure on local fiscal expenditure". Therefore, from this perspective, Guangdong, Jiangsu and other major export tax rebate provinces will be the biggest beneficiaries of this new policy adjustment.
Verb (abbreviation of verb) countermeasures and suggestions
(1) Accelerate the transformation of the growth mode of foreign trade and adjust the import and export structure of foreign trade.
In accordance with the requirements of the concept, we will further implement the strategy of winning by quality, optimize the structure of foreign trade, improve export competitiveness, and improve the quality and efficiency of foreign trade. While giving full play to China's comparative advantages, we will expand the export of high-tech products, products and services with independent intellectual property rights and brands, and high value-added products, improve the industrialization level of processing trade, and enhance domestic supporting capabilities.
According to the actual situation in China, especially considering the need to solve the employment problem, the adjustment and upgrading of China's trade structure should follow the strategy of multi-level development and coexistence of multiple modes. First, actively develop and adapt to the upgrading of domestic demand, and develop and produce marketable products and departments based on the domestic market. The second is to give full play to comparative advantages, especially to speed up the development of marginal departments with dynamic comparative advantages, and cultivate our own multinational companies through effective competition and asset restructuring. At the same time, adjust the technology upgrading strategy and competition strategy of traditional labor-intensive departments. Improve the working conditions of labor-intensive industries, provide support for the resource integration of domestic labor-intensive industries, form design, research and development, brand and marketing, and promote the transformation of competition focus from cost and price competition to upgrading grade, design level and brand competition. Third, according to the national strategy, support some "strategic industries" and strive to achieve local breakthroughs in high-tech fields. Keep up with the international high-tech frontier, achieve key breakthroughs in some high-tech industries, and seize the commanding heights of industrial technology. Fourth, take the opening of service industry as an opportunity to accelerate the development of service trade. Encourage the export of superior service trade in China, and improve the technical content and added value of service trade. We will steadily develop foreign contracted projects, labor export, design consultation and foreign technical assistance. Through information construction and the cultivation of international management talents, we will develop international third-party logistics business, entrepot and transshipment business, make China a entrepot trade center, an international procurement center and an international cargo distribution center in neighboring economies, and expand the connotation and extension of foreign trade.
(2) Properly handle trade frictions.
First, further explore the possibility of establishing China's import coordination mechanism, mainly cotton, oil, soybeans and products that have a significant impact on domestic industries; The second is to further explore the establishment and gradual improvement of China's export coordination mechanism, mainly products that are easy to cause trade retaliation, trade friction and conflict abroad; Third, further explore the establishment and gradual improvement of the coordination mechanism of China's multilateral and bilateral economic and trade relations, especially bilateral coordination mechanisms, such as mutual anti-dumping. When dealing with neighboring countries in East Asia and Northeast Asia, we should deal with them more through bilateral coordination mechanisms than rigid anti-dumping measures; Fourth, when there is a major trade friction that may lead to disputes, government departments should make decisions quickly, and industry organizations should fully cooperate, so that all aspects of the response work, such as collecting information and data, planning the overall response plan, negotiating and lobbying in various aspects, media publicity and reporting, judicial preparation and response measures, can be carried out in an orderly and efficient manner to protect national interests and industrial economic security to the maximum extent. Fifth, consider countermeasures to deal with international friction in advance, such as setting up temporary adjustment tax for sensitive products. For certain sensitive goods, it is suggested that temporary export adjustment tax should be adopted to curb the excessive growth of export quantity in the case of possible friction or consultation with WTO members, and the adjustment tax collected should be used to establish innovation funds for enterprises in the same industry. Sixth, accelerate the reform of industry organization and self-discipline coordination mechanism.
(3) Continue to strengthen restrictions on the export of products with high energy consumption, high pollution and resources.
We will continue to strengthen macro-control over the export of products with high energy consumption, high pollution and high resources, make full use of the means permitted by WTO rules, including canceling export tax rebates and collecting export tariffs, resource taxes and pollution fees, and effectively restrict the large-scale export of such products. The rapid growth of export of these products has further aggravated the contradiction between domestic demand for energy and raw materials. Therefore, for such products, we should continue to introduce some targeted control measures to make up for the consumption of domestic resources and environment.
(D) the establishment of strategic resources import mechanism
With the development of China, China's import dependence on some strategic resource products will continue to increase. The rapid growth of China's imports in the past few years and the rapid decline this year have had and will have a great impact on the international market prices of some resource products. We should seize the opportunity of RMB exchange rate mechanism reform and seek to establish a stable import mechanism with relevant exporting countries.
Do a good job in coordinating and managing the import of resource products. In the import of these products, the government should strengthen guidance, and the industry should do a good job of self-discipline and external cooperation. We should vigorously promote the joint procurement mechanism of bulk resource products, maximize the advantages of China's import scale, avoid vicious price competition, and enhance China's "right to speak" in foreign negotiations. Accelerate the implementation of the strategy of "going out" of resources, support and encourage enterprises to "go out", control overseas resources, and further increase the proportion of equity mineral resources in China's imports.
(5) Establish and improve the trade promotion system to create a good external environment for the development of foreign trade and economic cooperation.
Compared with international practice, China's current trade promotion system has some problems, such as imperfect policies, imperfect institutional mechanisms and few promotion means. The government's way of promoting foreign trade is outdated, and the government's public information service to enterprises is far from meeting the needs of enterprises. Therefore, we should change the simple policy of "encouraging exports" in the past and build a trade promotion system in an all-round way in order to gain more comparative benefits in international trade and promote the overall development of the national economy. First, according to the requirements of the socialist market economy and the commitment to join the WTO, we will further reform the foreign trade and economic cooperation system and establish a unified, stable, standardized and efficient trade management and service promotion mechanism. Accelerate the revision and improvement of foreign trade laws and regulations. In addition to formulating trade policies and implementing macro-management, the government should turn more to providing trade promotion services for enterprises. Second, vigorously promote the strategic reorganization of state-owned foreign trade and economic cooperation enterprises, and form a main structure of diversified business in the field of foreign trade and economic cooperation, in which various ownership systems coexist, large, medium and small enterprises and domestic and foreign-funded enterprises develop together and complement each other. The third is to promote the organic combination of industry, enterprises and trade. The government changed from giving priority to support to creating a good trade environment. On the basis of the original support policy, the trade environment has been further optimized and the examination and approval procedures for import and export links have been simplified. Provide convenient customs clearance services for high-tech enterprises, and further expand the scope of product exemption or convenient inspection and quarantine. Give play to the role of intermediary organizations, deal with trade frictions and maintain normal export order. Establish an export information service database to provide enterprises with various information such as technology trade, international market trends of high-tech products, industry development, technical standards, national trade policies, etc.