Zhang Yansheng: Don'T Return To The Export Oriented System To Save Foreign Trade Enterprises.

In the first three quarters, the growth rate of China's imports and exports exceeded 20%, especially in the turbulent external environment.

However, the debt crisis in Europe and America has not yet come out of the mire.

With the help of the international market, the "double surplus", which has been rising year by year, has forced China to face the pressure of global economic rebalancing.

With the end of the golden age of global market, China's foreign trade pformation is strenuous under the inertia of export oriented growth mode.

For China, which bears the name of "world factory", it is changing.

What is the foreign trade situation next year? Where is the road to pformation?

The foreign trade situation is not optimistic next year.

Twenty-first Century: judging from the judgement of the trade department, the situation of foreign trade this year is not optimistic. It may be worse in the first quarter of next year. What do you think of the current situation of foreign trade?

Zhang Yansheng: we all know that exports depend on external demand, and imports depend on domestic demand. From the current situation, the situation of external demand is very bad, and the domestic demand situation is relatively good. Therefore, the growth rate of imports in the first ten months of this year is obviously faster than exports, which is a basic trend.

Imports and exports will not be optimistic next year. Prices of crude oil, iron ore and agricultural products are still at a high level.

The prices of these commodities should be determined by supply and demand.

But in fact, you will find that the US, Japan and Europe are seriously short of effective demand. The growth of the emerging economies is also slowing down. The US dollar and the euro are oscillating sharply, and the global liquidity is in flood. In this case, the price of bulk commodities is still at a higher price level from the fundamentals of supply and demand.

The price of crude oil, iron ore and grain imported by China in the first ten months of this year is still high, which has led to the instability of China's food prices and CPI. This is the fundamentals of the cost increase for China's foreign trade enterprises.

Twenty-first Century: what is the biggest challenge facing foreign trade?

Zhang Yansheng: the biggest problem facing foreign trade is exchange rate risk and trade friction.

There are two facts that will last until next year. The first is the exchange rate bill proposed by the United States. From the current situation, it is quite likely that the bill will become law. If the bill is passed into law by the two chambers and signed by the president, it is assumed that China is a currency manipulator. Then, China's exports to the United States will be faced with the kind of dilemma similar to those faced by the major countries in the 1971 Smithson agreement, that is, all imports from the United States will be subject to import surcharge.

If China adopts trade retaliatory measures, China and the United States as the world's first and second largest economic powers, if they fight for trade for their own political interests, then the United States, China and the global economy and trade will be a nightmare.

Twenty-first Century: what will be the result of these factors coming together?

Zhang Yansheng: including the recent US double check on China's photovoltaic enterprises, which means that the exchange rate risks and trade frictions we face this year and next year will be very intense.

From our survey of enterprises, this problem is the biggest uncertainty risk for enterprises.

In May 2005 and June, the conflict of textile trade between China and Europe was clear. Once the United States and Europe imposed special sanctions against China's textile trade, China's textile and clothing exports to the United States and Europe were heavily overloaded at port ports, causing huge trade losses to China.

To make matters worse, a series of trade disputes between China and the United States, not only in trade and trade, but also in domestic policies, such as the concept of "competition neutrality", is now being put forward by Europe and the United States.

He believes that your domestic competition policy is non neutral. If the government supports and subsidize state-owned enterprises, it will conduct countervailing investigations against you and take measures. China, as a developing and pforming country, has obvious advantages in the exercise of international rules, which is also very unfavorable for our export situation next year.

Combined with these factors, we will find that foreign trade enterprises, whether in domestic market or in emerging markets, are a long-term adjustment process. It is impossible to see the effect in the short term, including the pformation of export structure through capital exports, including the active opening of emerging markets to diversify the export market, and the promotion of technological, managerial and market innovation to speed up the upgrading of enterprises.

At present, the government's macro policy should provide a better macro environment for the pformation and upgrading of foreign trade enterprises.

Adversity is most conducive to adjusting the structure. We do not want to return to the export oriented old system in order to save foreign trade enterprises, or we should move forward step by step to promote the pformation of foreign trade structure and promote the pformation of the growth mode of foreign trade. This is the key.

For China, the high growth of foreign trade for so many years, there should be a big adjustment stage. To accelerate the implementation through the current predicament is beneficial to the long-term development of enterprises and the enhancement of the international competitiveness of the industry.

Transformation prospects

Twenty-first Century: are there any signs of foreign trade pformation?

Zhang Yansheng: speaking from the foreign trade situation, the prospect of pformation and upgrading is not optimistic.

One of the reasons is that half of China's foreign trade is undertaken by foreign-funded enterprises, mainly through processing trade.

There are two ways of processing trade, one is the mode of OEM, the other is the mode of independent production.

OEM refers to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao enterprises for European and American enterprises to OEM, mainland enterprises for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao OEM industry chain.

The current mode of OEM is facing the pressure of greater structural pformation.

No matter whether the government gives incentives or incentives, the natural laws of the economy will change the mode of our OEM. The reason is very simple. The European and American economies are not good, the whole production chain of OEM is not good, the mode of OEM will be changed greatly, which will bring about a big adjustment in the trade surplus and the total volume of trade.

Second, since 2005, the mode of operation of foreign-invested enterprises has undergone great changes. More and more enterprises in Europe and America, Japan and South Korea have been converted from domestic exports to domestic sales, which has contributed to the growth of imports rather than exports.

In the past, we said that the products of European and American enterprises in China are the three trends, namely, domestic sales, export and repurchase, and the proportion of domestic sales is increasing.

On the one hand, domestic competition will become more and more intense. On the other hand, the export and surplus created by foreign investment will decrease significantly.

The third aspect is the rising cost, which includes both the increase in import cost abroad, and the increase in the cost of various domestic elements, even more than the rate of productivity growth.

In this way, China's low cost competitive advantage is being gradually weakened. Meanwhile, the comprehensive cost of investment environment in China is increasing faster than its competitors. The trend of industrial pfer is difficult to reverse, especially in processing trade. Some of them will go to the central and western part of China, and part of them may go to the surrounding areas and other countries.

It also includes the strategy of revitalization of manufacturing industry in Europe and the United States and the return of US capital to local or surrounding areas in China. These trends will lead to unexpected changes in trade stage and trend.

It is useless to use these preferential policies for these changes, just as some foreign trade provinces are still attracting investment at any cost, but the new trend is hard to come by.

Personally, I think we should speed up the pformation of the growth mode of foreign trade according to the guiding ideology of "12th Five-Year". It is our real direction to change from the pursuit of speed and scale to the pursuit of efficiency and quality.

In the middle of this change, the dependence of foreign trade may shrink, and the growth of foreign trade may slow down. In the face of these changes, we should not be too fragile, and immediately implement a new round of measures to promote the development of export-oriented economy, and finally lead to the return of the old mode.

Twenty-first Century: how do we view the current foreign trade policy of stabilizing exports, expanding imports and reducing favorable balance?

Zhang Yansheng: economic activities must respect the law, the economic situation in Europe and the United States is bad, and the external demand is seriously declining. If you insist on exporting well, wait for the trade conflict.

Now we should steadily push forward the strategy of expanding domestic demand and implement the strategy of economic internationalization, that is, from the export-oriented mode led by export-oriented and attracting investment to the internationalization of talents, capital, industry and market. The emphasis is on internationalization rather than on the outside world.

The next step of foreign trade should be an important chess player in the international strategy, and should not be the whole engine of China's development.

At present, our low cost competitive advantage is declining in the international market and competitors. The pursuit of military forces is getting closer and closer, and there is still a big gap between cultivating new competitive advantages and competing with Korean and Japanese enterprises.

The new competitive advantage has not been formed, and the old competitive advantage has declined rapidly. The foreign trade will be faced with the risk of landslide. Instead of accepting the landslide, continuing to continue the old mode, one day, we will encounter the "canes" that we can not go through.

Therefore, it is imminent to pform mode and growth mode and cultivate new competitive advantage, which is a new test for the change of the whole policy environment.

The contribution of imports to GDP is seriously overestimated.

Twenty-first Century: where is the direction of industrial upgrading and competitiveness in the future?

Zhang Yansheng: we draw a coordinate, the horizontal axis is the total output value, the vertical axis is the added value. In the past, our trade mode was in the lower right corner, that is, the total trade volume was very large, but the proportion of added value was very low. The next step is to change the structure of foreign trade, that is, we should gradually turn from the lower right corner to the upper left corner, that is, the trade is not large, but the proportion of added value is very high. This is the direction of our next stage of the development of foreign trade industry competitiveness.

To improve efficiency, first of all, we must improve the quality of the workforce. For example, the training of migrant workers should be at least one week's training in the past 30 years, extending to 24 months at least. The proportion of all kinds of professionals in Colleges and universities should also increase significantly, and the position of the value chain of the entire product will also be significantly improved.

If we fail to do so, the growth of foreign trade will be greatly slowed down and stagnate, so this is the next step we must make. Therefore, starting from next year, monetary policy, fiscal policy or foreign trade policy should focus on the pformation and upgrading of trade and production. Therefore, we should focus not only on implementing the aggregate policy of demand management to maintain growth, stabilize prices and reduce surplus, but also to implement supply management policies in order to structure, promote pformation and upgrade.

The focus of the latter is how to form a new supply side competitive advantage. In the next 5 to 8 years, if we fail to do this, China's future long-term development will be in great trouble.

Twenty-first Century: will the growth of foreign trade in the future be as negative as that during the financial crisis?

Zhang Yansheng: in the past 30 years, the contribution of foreign trade to GDP growth is obvious to all. However, according to this, China is a country which relies heavily on external demand, but it is not necessarily correct.

Why? One of the reasons is that China's surplus is mainly the processing trade. However, according to the study of Professor Liu Zunyi, former president of Chinese University Hong Kong and Professor Chen Xikang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the local added value of processing trade is about 20%, and the other 80% added value is created abroad.

What is the added value? Therefore, on the surface, China has a huge trade surplus, but the surplus is mainly created by the internal trade of multinational companies. The processing and assembly processes and links completed in China are mainly low value-added parts. The net value of imports and exports is calculated by traditional methods, and then the contribution of this net value to the GDP of our country is your real contribution?

From the perspective of value added, the contribution of imports and exports to GDP is seriously overestimated.

People always say that China relies heavily on external demand. In fact, China's dependence on external demand is not so great.

For places that may have a greater impact on him, such as Dongguan and Kunshan, but in China is only a very partial area.

Twenty-first Century: how can we solve the employment problem if we do not engage in low-end processing trade?

Zhang Yansheng: first of all, the key areas to create employment are to develop small businesses and improve the entrepreneurial environment and financing environment of small businesses. This is the foundation for creating employment. Second, we should develop the service industry and create a low tax burden, less control and wide access development environment; third, urbanization, especially the acceleration of the citizenization of migrant workers, and the establishment of the basic conditions for the equalization of basic public services.

In the past, relying on processing trade, the mode of large-scale and simple technology processing and assembly process was no longer able to continue.

The basic reason is that our cost is becoming more and more expensive, and our competitors are still cheap. This way of creating jobs is difficult to continue. With the increasing wages of workers, new sources of employment must be created.

The characteristics of China's two yuan trade structure are that the surplus is mainly created by multinational corporations, and employment is mainly created by small and medium-sized enterprises in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, and small and medium-sized enterprises in mainland China.

The rapid appreciation of RMB and the sharp rise in labor costs have a relatively small impact on the surpluses of pnational corporations over a period of time, and have great influence on the employment of enterprises in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau and Mainland China.

To truly care about employment, we must do a good job in the entrepreneurial environment of small businesses, do well in the development environment of the service industry, and ensure the system of urbanization.