Foreign trade picked up in August! Export still faces challenges, and the policy of stabilizing foreign trade will increase

On September 7, the General Administration of Customs released data showing that in the first eight months of this year, China's total import and export value was 27.08 trillion yuan, a slight decrease of 0.1% year on year, of which exports were 15.47 trillion yuan, an increase of 0.8%, and imports were 11.61 trillion yuan, a decrease of 1.3%.

As of August, China's foreign trade import and export reached 3.59 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.5% and a month on month increase of 3.9%, of which the export reached 2.04 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 3.2% and a month on month increase of 1.2%; Imports reached 1.55 trillion yuan, down 1.6% year on year and up 7.6% month on month.

(Data map)

Compared with the 8.3% year-on-year decline in China's foreign trade import and export in July, the slowdown in August has narrowed, especially the decline in exports, from 9.2% in July to 3.2% in August.

Zhou Maohua, a macro researcher in the financial market department of Everbright Bank, told Shell Finance that the year-on-year decline in the amount of foreign trade exports and imports in August narrowed, which was better than the market expectation, indicating that the overall domestic foreign trade has improved. The decrease in the amount of foreign trade exports narrowed, mainly due to China's strong export resilience, the overall decrease in the price of export commodities narrowed and the base number fell back last year.

In August, foreign trade picked up significantly, and the new momentum of growth was striking

In the first eight months of this year, China's total import and export value slightly decreased by 0.1% year on year, 0.5 percentage point lower than the data in the first seven months of this year.

However, in August alone, China's foreign trade market picked up significantly.

In August, China's foreign trade imports and exports fell 2.5% year on year, of which exports fell 3.2% year on year and imports fell 1.6% year on year. The total volume, imports and exports fell 5.8 percentage points, 6 percentage points and 5.3 percentage points respectively compared with July.

For a long time, in the first two months of this year, China's total import and export value slightly decreased by 0.8%. In March, it increased by 15.5% year on year, in April, it increased by 8.9% year on year, in May, it increased by 0.5% year on year, in June, it decreased by 6% year on year, and in July, it further decreased to 8.3%.

What is the reason for the inflection point of foreign trade, especially export, in August?

According to the research report of Oriental Jincheng International Credit Evaluation Co., Ltd., there are two main reasons for the narrowing of export decline in August. First, after the export peak of last year, the growth base of export volume dropped significantly, which pushed up the year-on-year data of export volume in August this year; Second, the downward trend of new export momentum has eased. "However, the export volume in August was still in a negative growth state for the fourth consecutive month compared with the same period last year. The weak overseas demand was the main reason. Exporters generally reflected that there were insufficient orders. We judge that with the global semiconductor and consumer electronics industries bottoming out and rising, and the overseas economy's downward trend easing, the export growth base continued to decline in the same period last year, and the year-on-year decline in China's export volume is expected to continue to narrow. "

Zhou Maohua told reporters that although the export growth rate in August was still declining, the export was actually not weak and resilient. On the one hand, the export amount in August was far higher than the average of the same period in the past five years; On the other hand, the sharp year-on-year decline in the average price of foreign trade exports has dragged down the amount of exports, while the average price of foreign trade exports kept growing last year.

From the perspective of foreign trade structure, the new driving force is growing at an impressive rate. In the first eight months, China exported 8.97 trillion yuan of electromechanical products, an increase of 3.6%, accounting for 58% of the total export value, including 442.7 billion yuan of automobile exports, an increase of 104.4%.

Global demand slows down, and real estate stabilization is expected to drive import recovery

Looking forward to the future, Zhou Maohua believes that China's foreign trade exports still face challenges, mainly due to the slowing global demand, some foreign trade enterprises are facing operating costs, financing pressure, the impact of sharp fluctuations in the global foreign exchange market on orders, and fierce competition in the global market. "Among them, the biggest challenge is the slowdown of global demand. Up to now, the manufacturing PMI index of major economies in the world is still shrinking, China's PMI index of new export orders in August is also shrinking, South Korea, Vietnam and other peripheral economies also have poor foreign trade export performance, and Germany, the euro zone economic recession risk is rising, all of which reflect the weakening of global demand prospects."

In terms of imports, Zhou Maohua said that from the trend, the growth rate of imports is expected to gradually improve, mainly because the domestic economy is gradually recovering smoothly, consumer confidence is restored, the comprehensive effects of macro policies are gradually released, and real estate is expected to gradually stabilize, which will drive the recovery of import demand.

The research report of Oriental Jincheng International Credit Evaluation Co., Ltd. judged that the policy measures of stabilizing the scale and optimizing the structure in the foreign trade field in the future will be further increased, including periodic tax relief for foreign trade enterprises, encouraging innovation in new forms of foreign trade such as cross-border e-commerce and overseas warehouses with inclusive regulation, and fully tapping the potential of foreign trade infrastructure such as China Europe trains, Accelerate the negotiation process of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, and create a more favorable institutional environment for foreign trade exports. It is worth mentioning that in the first half of the year, many local organizations organized foreign trade enterprises to "go out" and "invite in" overseas customers, which significantly increased the development of overseas markets. In addition, with the support of various stable foreign trade policies, domestic private enterprises recovered their exports quickly, cross-border e-commerce and other new foreign trade businesses grew well, and new energy vehicles, lithium batteries The strong growth of the "new three types" of foreign trade, such as solar cells, will help alleviate the drag of insufficient overseas orders on China's exports.

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