During The Beginning Of Winter, The Decline Of Foreign Trade Can Not Be Ignored.

On the occasion of China's "beginning of winter" solar terms, the General Administration of Customs recently released data showing that in October, China's exports fell by 6.9% over the same period last year, and imports fell by 18.8% compared with the same period last year, and the trade surplus was 61 billion 600 million US dollars. Exports from 1 to October decreased by 2.5% compared to the same period last year, and imports fell 15.7% compared with the same period last year, and the trade surplus was 485 billion 900 million US dollars.

The industry believes that weak external demand is still the main reason for the low foreign trade.

During the same period of import and export data released in October, the Ministry of commerce also issued the report on China's foreign trade situation (2015 autumn) (hereinafter referred to as the "report"), which is basically consistent with the data reflected in the above data.

According to the report, in the first three quarters of 2015, faced with severe and complicated domestic and international situations, China's foreign trade structure was constantly optimized, and its quality and efficiency continued to improve.

From a global perspective, China's foreign trade development is relatively good, the decline is lower than the average decline in Global trade, also lower than most major economies in the decline in foreign trade.

We can see that the overall situation of foreign trade in October is stable, but exports are slightly lower than expected.

In fact, the trend of export year-on-year was implicit in the early PMI of October, which is consistent with the trend that the new export orders of PMI manufacturing industry in October dropped by 0.5 points compared with September.

Since the depreciation of the "8. 11" RMB, the decline in exports in September and October has been expanding for two consecutive months, which confirms the saying that "the devaluation is favorable and the export function is limited".

The depreciation of the past two months shows that exports have little effect on China's exports, and China's exports have entered a new normal of low growth, which is determined by the international demand side and domestic industrial pformation.

In this regard, the report pointed out that this year, China's exports from growth to decline is the result of internal and external causes.

From the external environment, the recovery of the world economy is slowing down, especially the growth rate of the United States is not as strong as expected. The growth rate of emerging markets and developing countries has slowed down for five consecutive years, and the weak demand in the international market has caused a great impact on China's exports.

From the perspective of internal factors, the overall cost of foreign trade remains high, and traditional competitive advantages continue to weaken.

Coupled with the appreciation of the real effective exchange rate, the export was further suppressed.

From the external factors, the global economy has been in a period of slow growth. IMF has recently lowered its forecast for global economic growth to 3.1%, the fourth reduction in the past 12 months, indicating that external demand growth is weak.

The export data of Korea and Vietnam, which are more similar to the export structure of China, were observed in October, and all of them showed a downward trend compared with September.

For example, South Korea's exports, known as "canaries in coal mines", also fell by 15.8% in October, reflecting the fact that the global economy is still hard to see. This is the external environment of external demand.

In addition, China's exports to the major developed areas all showed a marked decline in October: the growth rate of exports to the United States dropped by more than 7 points, back to negative growth, and the growth rate of exports to Japan and the EU also declined by 3.1 and 2.7 points respectively.

Early performance of the bright eye to ASEAN exports also witnessed a significant deterioration this month, the growth rate dropped by nearly 17 points, a year-on-year decline of 10.9%.

From China's exports of key products, mainly coal and lignite, mineral fertilizer and fertilizer and refined oil exports fell sharply compared with the same period last year.

In addition to unfavorable external factors, the export decline is also related to China's foreign trade entering the pformation and upgrading period.

The traditional advantages of "made in China" are obviously weakened under the dual pressure of rising domestic comprehensive cost and catching up with neighboring emerging economies, and the new international competitiveness has not yet been fully formed.

This is particularly reflected in the slowdown in the export growth of labour intensive products in China and the decline in market share in Europe and the United States.

Data show that in the first 10 months of this year, Chinese clothing,

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Exports of furniture, plastic products, bags and toys in 7 categories of labor-intensive products decreased by 2.5% compared with the same period last year, a drop larger than that of exports.

On the export side, the leading indicators of the world economy showed signs of slowing down, indicating that there was no marked improvement in global demand.

In September 2015, J.P. Morgan's global manufacturing PMI dropped to 50.6, the lowest since July 2013.

At the same time, considering the higher export base in the fourth quarter of last year, it is difficult to achieve rapid export growth in the fourth quarter of this year.

In terms of imports, the above factors that affect imports in the short term can hardly disappear completely.

But as China's economic structure continues to optimize, technological and industrial progress accelerates, domestic consumption expands and upgrades, and new import demand is constantly emerging, which will, to a certain extent, hedge against the adverse effects of these factors.

In the first three quarters of 2015, China's imports of electronic technology products grew by 1.6% over the same period last year, 3.3% of life science and technology products and 7.9% of biotechnology products.

In addition, imports of medicines, furniture and bedding, toys and games and other consumer goods also maintained a relatively fast growth rate of 4.6%, 6.4% and 10.7% respectively.

With China's further opening up, the medium and long term import growth is still optimistic.

Let's analyze the import again.

Look at the import slump, we need to consider the cardinal factors.

In October, imports fell 18.8% year-on-year, although the decline narrowed, but continued to operate at a low level.

We should take an objective view of it, and we must not attribute it entirely to domestic demand.

First of all, the import trend in 2014 was low and high, with a base factor. Secondly, the international commodity prices fell sharply, and even continued downward.

With these two factors in the background of weak domestic demand, imports will be worse than last year.

At the same time, because of the deep adjustment of China's economic structure, the demand for traditional imported goods has shifted from strong to weak, and the growth of imports of energy and resources products has declined sharply, and some have even dropped considerably.

In addition, the export of processing trade continued to slump, and imports of raw materials and components were also decreasing.

China

Medium processing trade accounts for more than 30% of the total, which is characterized by "big in and out out", resulting in a considerable portion of China's imports being intermediate products needed for export production.

Under the background of low demand and fierce competition in the international market, China's processing trade exports continued to decline, the decline in the first three quarters reached 8.8%, and processing trade imports correspondingly dropped by 13.8%.

However, the report also pointed out that China's terms of trade improved significantly and its foreign trade benefits improved when the import prices of commodities fell.

In the first three quarters, China's export prices fell by 1%, significantly less than the 11.6% decline in import prices over the same period.

It is estimated that China's trade price index is 112 in the first three quarters, which means that a certain quantity of goods exported can be exchanged for more than 12% of imports.

The fall in import prices also saved China's foreign exchange expenses, reduced the production costs of domestic enterprises, and reduced the prices of 10 commodities, such as crude oil, refined oil and iron ore, and saved 156 billion 100 million US dollars in foreign exchange.

Considering the whole year, the export volume of China will be basically the same as that of the previous year in 2015, and the import volume will decrease considerably, and the total import and export will be reduced.

But from a global perspective, China's foreign trade development is relatively good, the decline is lower than the average decline in Global trade, also lower than most major economies in the decline in foreign trade.

In addition, some bright spots in China's foreign trade development can not be ignored: the technological content of export products is constantly improving, the equipment manufacturing industry has become a new growth hotspot, and new business models of cross-border e-commerce and other foreign trade have been developing vigorously.