In The New Year, How Can Companies Solve Problems To Stabilize Foreign Trade
Since last year, in the face of a complex and severe external environment, the country has worked hard to overcome difficulties and made every effort to stabilize the fundamentals of foreign trade, achieving stability and improving the quality of foreign trade. On February 18, the province's high-level opening up and high-quality investment promotion conference clearly stated that we should focus on building a new highland for opening up to the outside world, actively explore new markets, expand new business formats, expand new space, stabilize the basic foreign trade, and cultivate new foreign trade. kinetic energy. How will the global trade situation change in the new year? How to stabilize the fundamentals of foreign trade and cultivate new momentum for foreign trade?
Focus on emerging markets and tap export potential
"2023 will be the most difficult year for our foreign trade exports in recent years." Qingdao Liansheng Yikang Biotechnology Co., Ltd. is a foreign trade enterprise that mainly produces deep-processed products of crops such as garlic and onions. Its products are mainly exported to European and American markets. The export pressure of the entire company can be described as "double loss".
The so-called "double loss" means losing orders and losing profits. "Affected by factors such as international geopolitics, consumption in Europe has been weak in recent years, coupled with continued trade frictions between Europe and the United States against China, which resulted in a significant decline in orders from Europe and the United States last year." Zhang Haifeng said that currently, international routes to Europe via the Suez Canal are blocked. Shipping prices on European and American routes have increased nearly five times, further diluting corporate profits.
The reporter's interview found that the pressure encountered by Liansheng Yikang's exports can be said to be a common problem encountered by foreign trade companies in the province. In December last year, the "Global Trade Update" report released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development stated that due to the intensification of geopolitical tensions and changes in trade patterns, global trade volume is expected to shrink by approximately US$1.5 trillion by the end of 2023, compared with 2022. This is down 5% from record levels. The report also mentioned that the outlook for 2024 remains "highly uncertain and generally pessimistic" due to factors such as ongoing geopolitical tensions, growing debt problems and general economic vulnerabilities.
Despite this, in Zhang Haifeng's view, foreign trade exports in 2024 are not without "articles" to be done. "Last year we exported more than 2,000 tons to the ASEAN market, a year-on-year increase of more than 300%, and it is expected to be even more this year." Zhang Haifeng said that in addition to ASEAN, countries such as Brazil and Chile will be the companies this year because of their relatively stable political situation and good economic growth momentum. The focus of stabilizing foreign trade.
"The development of intermediate goods trade is to a large extent an opportunity for our companies to upgrade their product structure." At present, the main technical barrier in the textile industry lies in the material part, which is also the main direction of Lian Runxiang's industrial structure upgrade. In September 2022, Lianrunxiang became the first company in my country to achieve stable mass production of nanofibers. Relying on its own research and development of nanofiber textile materials, the company's exports will achieve substantial growth in 2023.
The so-called "intermediate goods" refer to products used to produce other goods and services, such as raw materials, parts and components in the production process. They are products with the closest cooperation in the international industrial chain and supply chain, and often exist as a factor of production. .
"Intermediate product trade, as an important object of the economic cycle, can connect the production of enterprises upstream and downstream of the industrial chain into a whole, and strengthen the mutual collaboration and interdependence between enterprises producing the same product chain. Actively expanding intermediate product trade can give full play to the industrial The advantages of complete categories, developed manufacturing industry, and advanced production technology have promoted our province's enterprises to be more closely embedded in the global industrial chain and supply chain, and enhanced the influence of our province's advantageous industries." Shandong Academy of Social Sciences
Make good use of trade rules to enjoy better benefits
On January 1 this year, the China-Nicaragua Free Trade Agreement officially came into effect. This is the 21st free trade agreement signed by my country, and it is also the first free trade agreement in my country to open up cross-border service trade and investment in the form of a negative list. According to the agreement, my country's beef, shrimp, coffee, cocoa, etc. imported from Nicaragua, as well as Nicaragua's imported cars, motorcycles, batteries, photovoltaic modules, clothing and textiles, shoes and other products from China can enjoy tariff preferences.
In recent years, our country has continued to expand its opening up to the outside world. In 2023, China set a new record in the negotiation and signing of free trade agreements, signing free trade agreements with Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Serbia, and signing a protocol to further upgrade the free trade agreement with Singapore.
As the number of free trade agreements in our country increases, in 2023, Dagang Customs issued a total of 144,000 certificates of origin of various types, a year-on-year increase of 16.3%, and the amount of benefits reached US$6.16 billion. During the implementation process, because many free trade agreements have overlapping parts, companies are easily confused when using various trade rules, resulting in not enjoying the most favorable free trade plan. "For example, my country and ASEAN, South Korea and other RCEP members have signed other free trade agreements and preferential trade arrangements in addition to RCEP. A specific commodity can often be applied to multiple agreement tax rates, but some companies will blindly follow them.' "New Agreement" has resulted in the inability to maximize the enjoyment of tariff concessions." He suggested that companies should further compare tax reductions under various free trade agreements and choose the appropriate free trade agreement to apply for certificates to enjoy benefits.