In the first quarter, imports and exports fell by 6.4% year-on-year. What is the trend of foreign trade throughout the year?
On April 14, the State Council Office held a press conference to introduce China's foreign trade import and export in the first quarter. The reporter learned from the meeting that the total value of China's imports and exports of goods in the first quarter was 6.57 trillion yuan, a decrease of 6.4% over the same period last year. Among them, exports were 3.33 trillion yuan, down 11.4%; imports were 3.24 trillion yuan, down 0.7%; trade surplus was 98.33 billion yuan, down 80.6%.
According to Li Kuiwen, a spokesman for the General Administration of Customs and the director of the Statistics and Analysis Department, imports and exports rebounded in March. The import and export of foreign trade in March was 2.45 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 0.8%, and the decrease was 8.7 percentage points narrower than that in January-February. Among them, exports were 1.29 trillion yuan, down 3.5%; imports were 1.16 trillion yuan, up 2.4%.
Imports of key consumer goods such as meat increased rapidly. In the first quarter, imported soybeans were 17.792 million tons, an increase of 6.2%; imported pork was 951,000 tons, an increase of 1.7 times; imported beef was 513,000 tons, an increase of 64.9%. Affected by the epidemic, China imported 61.91 billion yuan of medical materials and drugs, an increase of 14.8%.
In addition, on January 31 this year, the United Kingdom formally left the European Union, which will have a certain impact on the total trade volume between China and the European Union. In the first quarter of this year, superimposing the UK's "Brexit" factors, ASEAN replaced EU with 115.41 billion yuan and became China's largest trading partner.
The decline in the first quarter narrowed
Li Kuiwen said that although imports and exports fell by 6.4% in the first quarter, the decline was significantly narrowed by 3.1 percentage points compared with the previous two months, and foreign trade imports and exports rebounded.
Li Kuiwen said that as the policy effect of steady growth in foreign trade gradually emerged, export orders backlogs due to postponed resumption of work were delivered one after another. In March, foreign trade imports and exports reached 2.45 trillion yuan, down 0.8% year-on-year. From the perspective of ten days, imports and exports have achieved positive growth for two consecutive ten days in late March. Among them, the decline in exports narrowed to 3.5% in March, while imports increased by 2.4%. The trade balance also turned from a deficit in the first 2 months to a surplus.
At the same time, domestic industrial production and residents' lives have gradually recovered, and the potential of the domestic market has gradually been released. In the first quarter, China's import value fell by 0.7%, of which imports increased by 2.4% in March. In particular, driven by the growth in imports of meat and sugar, the import of consumer goods increased by 13% in the first quarter; the import value of production raw materials such as coal, crude oil, metal ores, and integrated circuits increased by 23.8%, 8.3%, 6.8%, and 13.1% respectively.
Despite the overall decline in foreign trade imports and exports in the first quarter, China ’s foreign trade imports and exports to countries along the “Belt and Road” have continued to grow, becoming an important factor in the steady development of foreign trade. According to customs statistics, in the first quarter of this year, China ’s imports and exports with countries along the “Belt and Road” reached 2.07 trillion yuan, an increase of 3.2% year-on-year, of which imports and exports to ASEAN and Russia increased by 6.1% and 5.7%, respectively.
Imports of soybeans, pork, etc. from the US are growing rapidly
In terms of Sino-US trade, Li Kuiwen said that with the gradual implementation of the first phase of the Sino-US economic and trade agreement, there have been some positive factors in the bilateral trade, especially the recent recent growth in the import of some commodities from the US. However, due to factors such as the new coronary pneumonia epidemic and the prolonged Spring Festival holiday this year, exports to the United States declined in the first quarter.
According to customs statistics, in the first quarter of this year, the total value of Sino-US trade was 668.01 billion yuan, down 18.3% year-on-year; of which, exports to the United States were 476.55 billion yuan, down 23.6%; imports from the United States were 191.46 billion yuan, down 1.3%.
With the gradual implementation of the first phase of China-US economic and trade agreement, imports of soybeans, pork, cotton and other commodities from the United States have grown rapidly. In the first quarter, imports of agricultural products from the United States amounted to 35.56 billion yuan, an increase of 1.1 times. Among them, the import of soybeans was 7.814 million tons, an increase of 2.1 times, and the value was 21.88 billion yuan, an increase of 2.1 times; the import of pork was 168,000 tons, an increase of 6.4 times, and the value of 3.04 billion yuan, an increase of 16 times; the import of cotton was 124,000 tons, an increase of 43.5%, The value is 1.59 billion yuan, an increase of 17%.
Annual foreign trade trend needs further analysis and observation
Li Kuiwen introduced that the impact of the epidemic is obvious. As mentioned earlier, the relevant data have declined overall, but improved in March. Of course, it will have different impacts on some regions and some industries. For example, affected by the new coronary pneumonia epidemic, exports fell in the first quarter of this year. Some major coastal foreign trade provinces have also been affected to some extent. For example, Guangdong and Jiangsu's foreign trade declined in the first two quarters.
Regarding the trend of foreign trade throughout the year, the current global epidemic of new pneumonia is still spreading, which has caused a serious impact on the development of the world economy. Recently, the International Monetary Fund recently predicted that the global economy will be in recession this year, and the World Trade Organization also predicted that global trade in goods will decline significantly this year. The shrinking demand in the international market will inevitably have an impact on China's foreign trade exports. Problems such as the reduction of new foreign trade orders have gradually emerged. The difficulties facing China's foreign trade development cannot be underestimated. But at the same time, we must also see that China's foreign trade is tough and competitive, and China's enterprises have strong innovation and market development capabilities.
