Foreign Trade Maintains Stable And Positive Momentum

Since the beginning of this year, some overseas institutions have been keen to hype topics such as "China's decline in attracting foreign investment", exaggerating pessimism and using this to pessimize the Chinese economy. At a regular press conference held on the 28th, Ministry of Commerce spokesperson He Yadong said that there are many reasons for fluctuations in the scale of foreign investment, including both economic and non-economic factors. Fluctuations in the scale of foreign investment must be viewed from multiple perspectives.
From a vertical perspective, my country's investment scale is still at a historically high level. From 2019 to 2021, my country's foreign investment absorption has set a new historical record for three consecutive years. The actual use of foreign investment in the first 11 months of last year reached 1.16 trillion yuan, the highest level in the same period in history. "Given the high base last year, it is normal for foreign investment to fluctuate in the first 11 months of this year. At the same time, the investment scale of 1.04 trillion yuan is still at a historically high level." He Yadong emphasized.
From a horizontal perspective, global cross-border investment has been sluggish in recent years. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development report shows that the scale of global cross-border direct investment fell by 12.4% year-on-year last year and is still shrinking this year. Since the beginning of this year, multinational companies have come to China for inspection and negotiation, showing great interest in investing in China. In the first 11 months of this year, 48,000 foreign-invested enterprises were newly established across the country, a year-on-year increase of 36.2%, which also confirms the momentum of foreign-invested enterprises investing in China.
From a structural perspective, as multinational companies adjust their investment layout, my country's structure for attracting foreign investment continues to be optimized. In the first 11 months of this year, the scale of investment in high-tech industries reached 386.65 billion yuan, accounting for 37.2% of the country's total foreign investment, an increase of 1.1 percentage points from last year's level. Among them, medical equipment and instrumentation manufacturing, electronics and communication equipment manufacturing increased by 27.6% and 5.5% respectively, and foreign investment in R&D and design services increased by 9.1%.
Overall, the fundamentals of China's economy, which is stable and improving in the long term, have not changed, and it will unswervingly promote high-level opening up. As the effects of the foreign investment policies that have been introduced gradually become apparent, the Chinese market's "magnetic attraction" to foreign investment will be stronger.
Since the beginning of this year, China's foreign trade has withstood pressure and overcame the impact of declining external demand, falling prices, and last year's high base, demonstrating strong resilience. When talking about how to view the overall situation of my country's foreign trade this year, He Yadong said that monitoring by commerce, customs and other departments and key provinces and cities showed that foreign trade operations at the end of the year basically continued the trend since the fourth quarter, and it is expected to maintain the scale of foreign trade and international market share throughout the year. The overall stability of the company has been achieved, and the annual goals and tasks of promoting stability and improving quality have been well accomplished.
"Looking forward to 2024, we must not only see the uncertainty and instability of the external environment, but also see the continuous accumulation of favorable conditions for the development of China's economy and foreign trade." He Yadong analyzed that on the one hand, the world economy is still in a difficult recovery In the process, global trade is picking up slowly. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development predicts that global trade in goods will fall by 7.5% this year and will remain "highly uncertain and generally pessimistic" next year. Adverse effects such as geopolitical spillover and increased trade protection restrictions continue. On the other hand, the long-term fundamentals of China's economy have not changed, the dividends of opening up will continue to appear, and the potential of new foreign trade products and new business formats will continue to be released. With the support of various policies to stabilize the economy and foreign trade, and with the joint efforts of foreign trade companies, China's foreign trade will continue to maintain a stable and positive momentum.