Foreign Trade Must Be Strengthened In Order To Stabilize Its Structure.

Recently, with China's semi annual economic report published in the first half of 2016, discussions on the "double fall" performance of imports and exports around the foreign trade data have attracted particular attention. After all, since the outbreak of the global economic crisis, the continued weakening of foreign trade caused by internal and external factors has been widely regarded as one of the main factors that drag China's economy.

In the second half or even longer period, where will China's foreign trade go? Is there room for policy making room?

In this regard, Liang Ming, deputy director and researcher of the Foreign Trade Research Institute of the international trade and Economic Cooperation Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, said in an interview with the China Economic Times reporter that, based on the current consensus at home and abroad that the demand of the international market will continue to be insufficient, the focus of our foreign trade efforts is no longer maintaining the high growth rate, but we should try our best to ensure our share in the international market.

Liang Ming stressed that the steady growth of foreign trade is the first step to ensure that foreign trade is stalled. Then, through the implementation of the current series of foreign trade policies, we will achieve stability as soon as possible.

In Liang Ming's view, in addition to recognizing the external factors such as the continued weakness of external demand, it should be optimistic about the performance of foreign trade in the first half of the year.

From the perspective of growth rate, tracking and analyzing the overall situation from 1 to June can lead to a judgement of "a steady trend towards a good trend".

He said that although the growth rate was still negative, the decline continued to narrow, and the total value of imports and exports increased from 9.8% in January to 3.3% in the first half.

In addition, from the total monthly import and export volume, it is also rising month by month.

"Overall, the trend towards stability is obvious."

Another supporting Liang Ming is judging the structural changes in data on the "trend of stability".

Data show that in the first half of this year, China's general trade imports and exports were 6 trillion and 280 billion yuan, down 1.2%, accounting for 56.4% of China's total import and export value during the same period, 1.2 percentage points higher than that of the same period last year, and the increase in the proportion of general trade imports and exports also shows that China's trade pattern structure has been optimized.

At the same time, the proportion of private enterprises' exports continued to be the top, that is, exports 2 trillion and 990 billion yuan, an increase of 3.6%, accounting for 46.6% of the total value of exports, and continue to maintain the leading position of export share.

It is also noteworthy that in the first half of the year, China's exports to the countries along the belt and road grew significantly.

From 1 to June, China's exports to Pakistan, Russia, Bangladesh, India and Egypt increased by 22.5%, 16.6%, 9%, 7.8% and 4.7% respectively.

Over the same period, China's exports to the EU increased by 1.3%.

Liang Ming believes that the performance of general trade and the continuous improvement of private enterprises are all behind the achievements of the current development of foreign trade.

Under the background of the current weak external demand and the domestic economy entering the new normal, starting from the goal of "13th Five-Year plan" for the optimization and upgrading of foreign trade, a series of central decision-making spirit has pmitted the key point of China's foreign trade development to further enhance the international market share.

Liang Ming said that even if China's foreign trade growth rate is decreasing, our country's share of "cake" in the international market is increasing. This is a very good sign.

When important economic data come out, it is always a topic that can not be judged by the data performance.

In the first half of the year, China's foreign trade performance has not yet gone out of the "double down" channel, and the downward pressure is still there.

One disaster after another.

Such worries may not be groundless.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) recently released the global trade climate index of 99, 1 percentage points below the ups and downs line, indicating that world trade growth in the three quarter of 2016 will continue to slump.

According to the data of China's General Administration of customs, China's foreign trade in June

The leading index was 32.7, down 0.4 from last month.

The index showed a low level fluctuation in the first quarter. It rose to the first quarter in the two quarter and then dropped for two consecutive months. This shows that China's exports are facing greater downward pressure in the three quarter.

According to the survey data, China's export managers index, the new export orders index and the confidence index of managers in June have all dropped.

Liang Ming believes that there is no need to be too pessimistic after recognizing that the current decline in foreign trade has continued to narrow and the positive factors continue to accumulate.

He said that according to the inertial expression thinking of the past "foreign trade data" before and after low, "in the second half of the year, in the case of continued efforts of relevant policies, we hope that the trend of foreign trade stability will continue and we expect the bottom to rebound.

It is different from most of the views on the situation of foreign trade in the second half of this year and the weakness of international trade.

It seems that WTO's Global trade climate index and China's customs leading index can objectively play a prejudging role, but it needs not be too pessimistic, but should be regarded as an objective reason for the adjustment of China's foreign trade development plan.

That is to say, China's foreign trade focus is no longer on top of the pursuit of high growth rate, but instead of steadily increasing the share of the international market.

At the end of demand, Liang Ming said that despite weak external demand, there are still initiatives to be taken, such as lowering tariffs on products and promoting "one belt and one road" through building a unified big market.

"In this way, the export price advantage of our products will be highlighted."

On the supply side, Liang Ming believes that "made in China" still needs to further improve the quality of products and produce products that are more in line with the needs of the international market. In particular, we should produce more rigid products that the international market needs and have to rely on China.