Review of China's foreign trade in 2013

The State Council Information Office held a press conference on January 10, 2014. Zheng Yuesheng, spokesman of the General Administration of Customs and director of the Comprehensive Statistics Department, introduced the import and export situation in 2013.

According to customs statistics, in December 2013, China's imports increased by 8.3% year-on-year, and exports increased by 4.3% year-on-year. In December, China's trade surplus was US$25.6 billion, and both exports and surpluses were lower than expected.

In terms of the whole year, China's total import and export value in 2013 was 25.83 trillion yuan (equivalent to 4.16 trillion US dollars), a year-on-year increase of 7.6% after deducting exchange rate factors, lower than the target set at the beginning of the year to "strive for an increase of about 8%" . However, the growth rate was 1.4 percentage points higher than that in 2012, and the annual value of imports and exports exceeded the US$4 trillion mark for the first time. Among them, exports were 13.72 trillion yuan (equivalent to 2.21 trillion U.S. dollars), an increase of 7.9%; imports were 12.11 trillion yuan (equivalent to 1.95 trillion U.S. dollars), an increase of 7.3%; trade surplus was 1.61 trillion yuan (equivalent to 259.75 billion U.S. dollars), expanding 12.8%.

According to the statistical analysis of the General Administration of Customs, the scale of China's import and export of goods in 2013 increased by The quarter-on-quarter increase, while the growth rate bottomed out in the second quarter and began to rebound from the second half of the year. From the first quarter to the fourth quarter, my country's import and export value was 975.38 billion, 1.02 trillion, 1.06 trillion and 1.1 trillion US dollars respectively, with year-on-year growth rates of 13.5%, 4.3%, 6% and 7.3% respectively.

In 2013, the main situations of my country's foreign trade import and export are as follows:

1. Trading partners are becoming more diverse: the traditional market shares of Europe, the United States and Japan have declined, and emerging markets such as ASEAN have become new growth points. In 2013, the European Union, the United States, ASEAN, Hong Kong and Japan were China's top five trading partners. Among them, China's bilateral trade volume with the EU and the United States was 559.06 billion US dollars and 521 billion US dollars, an increase of 2.1% and 7.5% respectively; the bilateral trade volume with Japan was 312.55 billion US dollars, a decrease of 5.1%; Europe, the United States and Japan accounted for 33.5% of my foreign trade. %, down 1.7 percentage points year-on-year. During the same period, my country's bilateral trade with ASEAN, South Africa, the five Central Asian countries and other emerging market countries was 443.61 billion, 65.15 billion and 50.28 billion US dollars respectively, an increase of 10.9%, 8.6% and 9.4% respectively. In addition, the two-way trade volume between the mainland and Hong Kong, China was US$401.01 billion, an increase of 17.5%.

2. The regional layout of trade has become more coordinated: the proportion of foreign trade in 7 provinces and cities such as Guangdong and Jiangsu has decreased, and trade in the central and western regions has been active. In 2013, the total import and export value of seven provinces and cities including Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Beijing, Zhejiang, Shandong and Fujian reached 3.29 trillion US dollars, accounting for 79% of the national total import and export value, down 0.9 percentage points from the previous year. In the central and western regions, Chongqing, Henan, Anhui, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Guizhou and other 7 provinces and cities have a growth rate of more than 15% in foreign trade, and their total import and export accounted for 5.7% of the total import value, an increase of 0.6 over the previous year. percentage point.

3. The main structure of foreign trade has become more reasonable: the proportion of private enterprises has increased, and the dependence on foreign-funded enterprises has been reduced. In 2013, the import and export of private enterprises reached 1.39 trillion US dollars, an increase of 20.6%, which was 13 percentage points faster than the overall growth rate of my country's foreign trade in the same period, accounting for 33.3% of the total import and export value, an increase of 3.6 percentage points. During the same period, the import and export of foreign-invested enterprises reached 1.92 trillion US dollars, an increase of 1.3%, accounting for 46.1%, a decrease of 2.9 percentage points. In addition, the import and export of state-owned enterprises was US$747.97 billion, down 0.6%, accounting for 18%, down 1.5 percentage points.

Fourth, the structure of import and export commodities was further optimized: exports of mechanical and electrical products and labor-intensive products grew steadily, while imports of consumer goods and some resource products grew rapidly. In 2013, my country's export of mechanical and electrical products was 1.27 trillion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 7.3%, accounting for 57.3% of the total export value. In the same period, the export of seven categories of labor-intensive products, including textiles, clothing, luggage, footwear, toys, furniture, and plastic products, reached US$461.84 billion, an increase of 10.3%, accounting for 20.9% of the total export value. In terms of imports, in 2013, my country imported US$232.29 billion in consumer goods, an increase of 24.6%; imported crude oil was 280 million tons, an increase of 4%; iron ore was 820 million tons, an increase of 10.2%; coal was 330 million tons, an increase of 13.4%.

5. The ability of independent development of foreign trade has been continuously enhanced, the proportion of general trade has increased, and the proportion of processing trade has decreased. In 2013, my country's general trade import and export with a long industrial chain and high value-added rate was US$2.2 trillion, an increase of 9.3%, accounting for 52.8% of my country's total import and export value in the same period, an increase of 0.8 percentage points; the import and export of processing trade was US$1.36 trillion , an increase of 1%, accounting for 32.6%, the proportion fell 2.2 percentage points. During the same period, the import and export of goods in my country's special supervision areas reached US$495.78 billion, an increase of 20.2%, accounting for 11.9%.

According to the introduction of the spokesperson of the General Administration of Customs, China's foreign trade in 2013 passed two milestones: first, the total value of import and export of goods trade reached a new level of 4 trillion US dollars, reaching 4.16 trillion US dollars; This is since my country's total import and export value exceeded 1 trillion US dollars in 2004, and exceeded 2 trillion US dollars in 2007 and 3 trillion US dollars in 2011, breaking the threshold of a whole trillion US dollars again; the second is China's foreign trade value. Overtaking the United States to become the world's largest trading nation.

Although China's foreign trade failed to achieve the goal of "guaranteeing 8", the figures of 7.9% increase in exports and 7.3% in imports were still "unsatisfactory", and the task was basically completed. In 2013, when the European and American economies were just out of recession, and emerging market countries experienced trade and financial turmoil, China's exports still showed a steady "weak growth" trend. Under the blow, it quickly subsided.

For Chinese exporters, the biggest headache in 2013 may not be the weak external demand, but the renminbi value that keeps hitting new highs. According to statistics, in 2013, the exchange rate of RMB against the US dollar appreciated by 2.9%, an increase that is rare among global currencies.

Looking forward to 2014, as China's trade surplus still exists, the pace of RMB appreciation may continue. According to many analysts' predictions, breaking "6" is a high probability event, but as the RMB exchange rate is getting closer to equilibrium, in 2014 The rate of appreciation is not expected to be large.

From the perspective of export demand, the economic recovery of the United States and Europe has been confirmed. As traditional Chinese export destinations, the recovery of these two huge market demand is undoubtedly a great benefit for Chinese exporters. It may be a high probability event that China's exports in 2014 are better than in 2013.