Prospect Of Shanghai Port'S Foreign Trade In 2008

Since China's accession to the WTO, with the deepening of China's economic integration with the world, the external factors affecting China's foreign trade development have gradually increased and its influence has been increasing.

At the same time, after the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China's economic reform has entered a critical stage. With deep contradictions and problems gradually exposed, the internal factors that affect the development of China's foreign trade are more complicated.

Considering the internal and external factors of China's foreign trade, and aiming at the specific characteristics of Shanghai port's foreign trade, it is expected that in 2008, the development of Shanghai port's import and export will present the following characteristics:

(1) export: 4 factors will lead to a slight decline in export growth next year.

In 2008, the international and domestic economic situation was generally stable, and the export of Shanghai ports continued to grow rapidly.

However, the four main factors, such as the increase of downside risks in the main export market economy, the inhibition of export power by macroeconomic regulation and control, the weakening of export competitiveness and the escalation of trade frictions, and the difficulty of exports, have been coexisted. In addition, in recent years, the base of the rapid growth of exports has increased. It is estimated that the overall trend of Shanghai port and national exports in 2008 will be basically the same, and all of them will show a high deceleration pattern.

Taking into account the specific conditions of port trade composition, market distribution and commodity characteristics, the risk resistance capability of Shanghai port export is higher than the national average level, and it is expected that the growth rate of port export will be smaller than the national average.

The concrete manifestation is:

First, the US sub prime mortgage crisis pushed up the downside risk of port export growth.

Affected by the outbreak of the subprime crisis, the risk of US economic downturn has increased sharply. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has lowered the US economic growth forecast by 1 percentage points to 1.9% [1] in 2008.

Since 2007, although the United States has been relegated to the second largest export market in China, its economic well-being is still one of the important factors that affect the export growth of our country.

Central bank research shows that US economic growth slows by 1 percentage points, and China's exports will decline by 6 percentage points [2].

Against this background, as an American market occupying 23% of Shanghai port's export share, its slowing economic growth will drag down the growth of port export.

On the other hand, in recent years, the United States has weakened the leading factors of world economic growth, and the role of diversification has become stronger.

Thanks to the fact that the fundamentals of major economies such as the euro zone, Japan, ASEAN and the BRICs [3] have remained unchanged next year, IMF expects the world economy to continue a moderate growth rate of 4.8% [4] in 2008, and the negative impact of us factors on China's exports is relatively weakened.

In particular, in addition to Russia, the proportion of these major economies in the total export volume of Shanghai ports is higher than the national average.

Among them, the developed markets such as the European Union and Japan are about 3 percentage points higher and the emerging market is 0.1-0.5 percentage points higher.

Considering that the export market structure of Shanghai port is different from that of the whole country, the risk of export slowdown caused by the US subprime mortgage crisis is slightly lower than the national average level.

The two is intensive export control.

Since 2007, in order to curb the excessive growth momentum of the trade surplus, the state has promulgated a series of macro adjustments and controls, such as reducing or canceling export rebates, increasing export tariffs, raising the entry threshold for "two high and one capital" industry, expanding the scope of restricted export products for processing trade, adjusting the policy of utilizing foreign investment and tightening up the financial resources and restraining investment ability.

In the past, the export oriented enterprise's export profit was squeezed with the increase of production cost and the ability and enthusiasm to restrain the growth of export.

In the first 11 months, the export growth rate of the national and Shanghai ports dropped by 1.3 and 2.6 percentage points respectively, indicating that the effect of the macro-control measures is beginning to show.

As the pmission of economic policy needs some time lag, with the continuous release of macroeconomic regulation and control effect, and does not rule out the further strengthening of regulatory measures and efforts next year, it is estimated that the export growth of Shanghai port in 2008 will still be in a downward channel.

At the same time, intensive export tightening policy has great influence on the regulation of "two high and one capital" products.

The proportion of these products in Shanghai port export is much lower than the national average level.

For the first 11 months, the proportion of steel exports in Shanghai port accounted for 2.8% of the total export volume, 0.9 percentage points lower than the national average level, and the total port export value of billets and ferrosilicon was 40 million US dollars, which was only 1% of the total value of the 2 products.

The total value of ports for 4 minerals, clay, fluorite, barite and talc, is only $10 million, while the total value of exports in the same period reaches US $940 million.

In addition, Shanghai port backs the Yangtze River Delta region where multinationals gather. 43.2% of the export share comes from wholly foreign-owned enterprises, which is 4 percentage points higher than the national average. Large multinational enterprises in China are an important part of their global strategy, and their business objectives are clear, so it is difficult to make fundamental changes due to macroeconomic regulation and control.

Therefore, combined with the characteristics of export product structure and export subjects, the negative impact of tightening policy on Shanghai port exports will be relatively weaker than the national average in the future.

Three, the cumulative effect of RMB's continued appreciation weakens product export competitiveness.

Usually, the appreciation of the local currency will weaken the price competitive advantage of the export products of the country, thereby affecting the export growth ability.

However, since the start of the reform in 2005, the cumulative appreciation of the RMB against the US dollar has exceeded 11%. However, because of the "small and high frequency" strategy adopted in the appreciation, and the depreciation rate of the US dollar in recent years is much higher than the appreciation rate of RMB, the effective exchange rate of RMB has not risen synchronously, and the depreciation of the euro has become more depressing.

But in 2008, the RMB appreciation is expected to grow stronger, and the annual increase is expected to exceed 10% [5]. According to the agreement between China and Europe, the situation of RMB depreciation against the euro is difficult to continue next year. The cumulative effect of RMB appreciation will be concentrated. The price advantage of export products will be weakened and export growth will appear. Script src=>