In the context of the trade war, the "big changes" made in China

According to the data released by the General Administration of Customs on June 10, in the first five months of 2019, the total value of my country's import and export of goods trade was 12.1 trillion yuan, an increase of 4.1% over the same period last year. Among them, exports were 6.5 trillion yuan, an increase of 6.1%; imports were 5.6 trillion yuan, an increase of 1.8%.

Among them, the growth rate of imports and exports to countries along the “Belt and Road” is higher than the overall, and the export market is more diversified. The role of the main force of foreign trade of enterprises has also been continuously strengthened. Affected by the Sino-US trade friction, since 2019, the amount and proportion of China's imports and exports to the US have dropped significantly. At present, the United States has dropped from the second largest trading partner of China to the third largest trading partner. In the first five months, the Sino-US trade volume accounted for 11.7% of China's total foreign trade, while in 2017, this figure was 15.2%.

Although China's economy has been affected to some extent by the Sino-US trade frictions, it has continued to develop with a positive momentum. However, in terms of comprehensive strength, China is still in a relatively weak position compared with the United States. In today's trade environment, how can Chinese export enterprises give full play to their advantages and realize changes in the changing situation? Global Sources has 48 years of experience in international trade. Through online and offline channels such as exhibitions, websites, and forums, Global Sources has been committed to helping suppliers develop global markets and discover new business opportunities. On June 26th and 27th, Global Sources and its leading management media CEConlines jointly held the "Outstanding Future Export Series" forums in Dongguan and Guangzhou respectively, and invited outstanding foreign trade experts and enterprises to share their experiences and discuss export enterprises. How to achieve a win-win situation in today's ecological environment.

Challenge: Big but not strong

Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei once pointed out that the global manufacturing industry can be divided into four echelons at present, the first echelon is dominated by the United States The second echelon is the high-end manufacturing field, including the EU and Japan; the third echelon is the low-end manufacturing field, mainly in some emerging countries, including China; the fourth echelon is mainly resource exporting countries, including OPEC ( Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), Africa, Latin America and other countries.

Associate Professor Zhang Yulai of the Japan Research Institute of Nankai University pointed out at the forum that China is currently only in the third echelon of the global manufacturing industry, and this pattern is unlikely to be fundamentally changed in a short period of time. To become a manufacturing power At least another 30 years to try.

Zhang Yulai said that we must be soberly aware that the United States is still a powerhouse in economy, technology and finance, and its status as the "world leader" is still irreplaceable. Although my country is on an upward trend, and its total economic volume is catching up with the United States, there is still a big gap between the level of economic and social development and comprehensive strength.

Meanwhile, although China's import and export volume is increasing year by year, foreign-funded enterprises account for a large part of China's foreign trade. Judging from customs data, in the first five months of 2019, the import and export of private enterprises was 5.02 trillion yuan, an increase of 11.1%, accounting for 41.4% of my country's total foreign trade value, an increase of 2.6 percentage points over the same period last year. During the same period, foreign-invested enterprises imported and exported 4.9 trillion yuan, accounting for 40.5% of my country's total foreign trade value.

Although the total import and export value of private enterprises has increased, the import and export value of foreign-invested enterprises is not much different from that. It can be seen that a large part of China's exports to foreign countries are not genuine made in China. "Made In China ≠ Made in China, you must clearly realize that only the manufacture of independent core technologies can be called truly made in China." Zhang Yulai said frankly, for example, most of the goods exported from China to the United States are American companies themselves. For example, Apple mobile phones are produced in China and then exported to the US market. IBM and Dell export 100% of their production lines in China to the US.

From Zhang Yu's point of view, one of the criteria for measuring outstanding enterprises is their ability to withstand pressure. At present, the ability of Chinese enterprises to withstand pressure is also slightly weak. For example, in 2018, ZTE was "sanctioned" by the United States. There has been a deficit of more than 10 billion US dollars, and Huawei's overseas mobile phone market will also decrease by 40 million in the next two years. He took Japan’s previous countermeasures as an example. During the Sino-Japanese trade friction, the United States introduced an environmental protection law around 1978, which restricted Japanese cars from entering the American market with substandard emissions. At this time, Honda and Toyota developed a The three-way catalytic technology at that time was specially developed in response to the laws of the United States. But looking back after decades, the ultimate loser of the US-Japan auto trade war is the US car dealers. However, the Japanese auto industry is growing day by day, becoming a truly globally competitive global auto brand.

Opportunity: Self-improvement wins

In 2019, the world economic development will face greater downward pressure, the growth momentum will slow down, the policies of various countries will be tilted inward, and trade protectionism will continue to heat up. The trend of "globalization" has led to the intensification of global economic and trade frictions.

As the world's largest economy, the U.S. government frequently takes tough trade protectionist measures and vigorously implements the "America First" unilateral and protectionist trade policy, not only targeting China, Mexico, Emerging economies such as South Korea also point to allies such as the EU, Canada, and Australia.

The Sino-US trade friction is not a new historical opportunity for China, and the collective rise of emerging market countries and developing countries is unstoppable. For China, which is currently relatively weak, "the stronger wins" is the key to winning the trade war.

Recently, Huawei's performance in the Sino-US trade friction has attracted much attention. On June 27, Huawei released a white paper on Huawei's innovation and intellectual property titled "Respecting and Protecting Intellectual Property Rights Is the Only Way to Innovation" at its Shenzhen headquarters, which stated, "Sustainable innovation has been the foundation of Huawei's survival and development over the past 30 years. Respecting and protecting intellectual property rights is the only way to innovate."

Huawei, as a representative of outstanding enterprises, in Zhang Yu's view, "The real reason for Huawei's success lies in having a clear understanding of itself and being willing to put energy into it. Make up for the shortcomings."

First of all, Huawei attaches great importance to R&D. R&D personnel account for 45% of the entire company's internal employees, and insists on investing more than 10% of its annual income, about 15% in recent years, into R&D. Second, Huawei has become one of the largest patent holders in the world. In addition to its own patents, Huawei has paid more than $6 billion in patent fees to legally use other companies' patents.

Japanese companies and the United States have had a trade war for 30 years, but not many companies have closed down because of the trade war. How does Japan reduce the risk of trade frictions? "Japan's core strategy to deal with trade frictions lies in international coordination, which is to make continuous concessions, but they are conditional concessions, step by step, and each step of concession must enter a new field, which is the transformation and upgrading of the industrial structure." Zhang Yulai said .

Zhang Yulai also mentioned that another core strategy of Japanese companies is "real estate sales", that is, local production and local sales to minimize global trade flows. "Japanese companies continue to transfer production capacity overseas. At present, there are 32,000 Japanese companies in China and more than 8,000 Japanese companies in the United States." Zhang Yulai believes that this may be a very good way to avoid the current global political adverse current.

Honda's Acura, Nissan's Infiniti, Toyota's Lexus, these three high-end auto brands were born in the context of the trade war. At that time, they made a very important strategy of internationalization. From the initial entry into the US market, to investment and production in the US, the export problem is solved step by step. Zhang Yulai believes that these series of strategies are all ways to deal with trade frictions. In fact, companies can take many measures to deal with export problems.

Countermeasures: Concentrate on being yourself

Dongguan is the city with the highest "export dependence" in China. What impact does the Sino-US trade friction have on manufacturing and exporting enterprises in Dongguan? In this regard, Yang Jun, general manager of Central Guangdong, Global Sources, shared a set of data at the Dongguan Forum, "The total export value of Dongguan in 2018 was about 800 billion yuan, of which about 179 billion yuan was exported to the United States. Major exporters account for the majority of the U.S. market, and the export value of other private enterprises in the Southeast Asian market and the Belt and Road regions is also gradually increasing.”

In terms of the overall environment, although the Sino-U.S. trade friction has affected the entire Trade is balanced, but market opportunities in other regions are also increasing, which means that private enterprises need to seize the opportunity to focus more on countries and regions along the Belt and Road.

According to customs data, China's imports and exports to countries along the "Belt and Road" increased by 7.8% in the first five months of 2019, 4.1 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of foreign trade in the same period, accounting for 28.6% of the total import and export The same period last year increased by 1.1 percentage points. Among them, imports and exports to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Russia increased by 33.8%, 18.3% and 9.6% respectively.

As a "veteran" who has dealt with foreign trade for 17 years, Yang Jun has witnessed the rapid development of private export enterprises in Dongguan, and he also understands the hardships of foreign trade people and Dongguan export enterprises very well. "It is not easy to do foreign trade." He believes that companies worrying about the future with sincerity and fear, might as well cultivate their internal skills, and do a good job in product, factory management, cost control, and foreign trade promotion.

“The commercial society is cruel. If you have been making low-capacity, low-value-added products, it is normal to be eliminated, but the trade war will catalyze this.” Zhu Zibin, a foreign trade KOL, said that within the industry, enterprises must continuously improve their efficiency, product development capabilities and market capabilities, because trade wars are not the root cause of enterprise failure, but lack of core competitiveness.

The products made by any company are made step by step, from elementary, intermediate to advanced, and the most important thing is to focus on one industry, and then constantly update the products. Shi Ximin, general manager of Guangzhou Minshi Digital Technology Co., Ltd., as a sharing guest in the Guangzhou field, mentioned that he had put forward two directions for the company when he started his business in the early stage. The first is innovation, because innovation is the foundation for shaping competitiveness; the second is It is to control the quality of products, so that we can accumulate word of mouth and slowly build our own brand.

Some large companies in Japan grew up from handmade factories with three or five people. Zhang Yulai believes that the most important thing for them is to have their own uniqueness. For example, from the beginning of the establishment of Honda's founder, from making tricycles to cars, Honda made a determination at that time to master all engines, and now whether it is in the sky Flying or running on the ground, or swimming in the water, you can see the Honda engine.

Focus on doing one thing or one product well, which may be one of the reasons why big customers choose you. Zheng Yongji, general manager of Guangzhou Jinshilong Luggage Co., Ltd., believes that grasping the core competitiveness is the best solution to seek progress while maintaining stability, "In this era, entrepreneurs must stabilize themselves, do not invest indiscriminately, and carefully make their products well. Entrepreneurs should insist on making achievements in an industry and gradually form their own core competitiveness, and customers will naturally choose you.”

“In addition, the Sino-US trade friction is between countries, not individuals. What can be controlled. If every entrepreneur can do his best, then China will win." Zheng Yongji said.

Dongguan Siteng Electronics Co., Ltd. has participated in the Global Sources Exhibition since 2009, and actively explores overseas markets. Its chairman Gao Jingliang believes, "In the current trade environment, it is very difficult to go it alone. It is better to find upstream and downstream companies with the same values as you and grow together." Especially in a mature industry, starting a business from scratch is very important. Difficulty, in contrast, it is better to find a company in the industry to cooperate with. Whether it is in the domestic market or overseas, the business model of win-win cooperation will bring new opportunities.

Photo/Global Sources