Read China for ten years ｜ The scale of foreign trade has reached a new high and new breakthroughs have been continuously achieved.

　　Since the beginning of this year, China’s foreign trade has withstood the pressure and shown strong resilience: in the first 11 months, the total import and export value of goods trade was 37.96 trillion yuan, achieving positive growth year-on-year for two consecutive months, and the stabilization trend continued to consolidate.

　　As one of the "Troika" driving economic growth, foreign trade plays an important role in driving consumption, expanding employment and promoting economic growth.

　　In 2018 and 2022, the scale of foreign trade has successively passed the 30 trillion yuan and 40 trillion yuan mark. Since 2017, it has maintained its position as the largest country in goods trade for six consecutive years, and the trade volume of goods with countries that jointly built the "Belt and Road" has increased by 8% annually & hellip; … Since the new era, China’s foreign trade development has continuously achieved new breakthroughs.

　　"It is necessary to speed up the transition from a big trading country to a strong trading country, consolidate the traditional advantages of foreign trade, cultivate new competitive advantages, expand the development space of foreign trade and actively expand imports." On December 5, 2014, during the 19th collective study in the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, the important exposition of the Supreme Leader General Secretary pointed out the direction for promoting the high-quality development of foreign trade.

　　Since the new era, China’s position in global trade has improved significantly — —

　　During the decade from 2013 to 2022, a series of data confirmed the solid pace of China’s foreign trade development: in 2020, the total trade in goods and services surpassed the United States for the first time and became the largest trading country in the world; The import and export scale of cross-border e-commerce in China has increased from 1 trillion yuan in 2018 to 2 trillion yuan in 2022, entering a period of rapid development; In 2022, the international market share of exports further increased to 14.7%, ranking first in the world for 14 consecutive years … …

　　"The steadily expanding scale, continuously optimized structure and increasing international market share all confirm that the high-quality development of China’s foreign trade is fast and steady." Zhuang Rui, Executive Dean of university of international business and economics Institute of International Economics, said that China is advancing from a big trading country to a powerful trading country, which has provided strong support for stabilizing the macro-economic market.

　　The quality and efficiency of China’s foreign trade have been continuously improved, and new kinetic energy has been continuously released — —

　　The just-concluded Central Economic Work Conference clearly pointed out that it is necessary to speed up the cultivation of new kinetic energy of foreign trade, consolidate the basic disk of foreign trade and foreign capital, and expand intermediate trade, service trade, digital trade and cross-border e-commerce export.

　　In recent years, the "new three kinds" represented by electric manned vehicles, solar cells and lithium batteries have become hot words in the field of foreign trade, and they are the representatives of accelerating the upgrading of foreign trade. In 2022, the export growth rate of China’s electric manned vehicles, solar cells, lithium batteries and other green and low-carbon products all exceeded 60%, and the new export kinetic energy grew rapidly.

　　Since the new era, the vitality of China’s foreign trade entities has been effectively stimulated by accelerating reform and innovation, smoothing logistics channels, continuously optimizing the business environment at ports, and increasing support for small and medium-sized enterprises. In 2022, the number of foreign trade enterprises with import and export performance increased by 5.6% over the previous year. Among them, private enterprises gradually grew into the "main force" of foreign trade, accounting for more than half of the annual import and export scale for the first time, and contributing 80.8% to China’s foreign trade growth.

　　China’s foreign trade "friend circle" has been further expanded — —

　　In addition to maintaining close ties with traditional market trading partners, China is also actively exploring emerging markets such as ASEAN, Africa, Latin America and Central Asia. From 2013 to October 2023, the total import and export volume of China and the countries that jointly built the "Belt and Road" exceeded 21 trillion US dollars. Among them, in terms of RMB, China’s import and export to co-construction countries increased by 19.4% year-on-year in 2022, accounting for 32.9% of China’s total foreign trade value, up by 3.2 percentage points; Imports and exports to other member countries of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) increased by 7.5% year-on-year; Exports to Africa and Latin America increased by 14.8% and 14.1% respectively.

　　Zhang Yu, director of the International Economic and Trade Research Office of the Institute of Finance and Economics of China Academy of Social Sciences, said that while adhering to a high level of opening up, the effective implementation of RCEP and the continuous expansion of the "Belt and Road" and "friends circle" have opened up new space for deepening foreign trade development. In addition, international economic and trade events including Service Trade Fair, Consumer Expo, Canton Fair and China International Import Expo(CIIE) have also opened new channels for foreign trade transformation and upgrading.

　　At present, the external environment is turbulent, economic factors and non-economic factors are intertwined, and China’s foreign trade development still faces many difficulties and challenges. In response to this situation, China has continuously strengthened top-level design and continuously improved its foreign trade policy system.

　　The General Office of the State Council has successively issued a series of important documents, such as Implementation Opinions on Promoting the Innovative Development of Foreign Trade, Opinions on Promoting the Stable Scale and Excellent Structure of Foreign Trade, and Several Measures on Accelerating the Integrated Development of Domestic and Foreign Trade, which further clarified the path and direction for cultivating new formats, building a platform system, deepening reform and opening up, and creating a legalized, international and convenient trade environment.

　　Zhuang Rui said: China’s foreign trade and industrial fields are constantly advancing in system innovation, scientific and technological innovation, mode innovation and format innovation. Under this background, it is very important to deepen the domestic market and explore the international market to further improve the quality and efficiency of foreign trade. Facing the complicated and severe international situation, China should give full play to the positive role of foreign trade in building a new development pattern and bring more warmth and dividends to the world economy.

　　Reporter: Zou Duowei, Wei Yijun

　　Cartography: Hugo