On October 13, the State Information Office held a press conference to introduce the import and export situation in the first three quarters of 2023 and answered questions from journalists. Lu Daliang, spokesman of the General Administration of Customs and Director of the Department of Statistical Analysis, said in response to reporters' questions that since the beginning of this year, the momentum of world economic recovery is unstable, external demand is weakening, prices are falling, superimposed last year's high base impact, China's foreign trade growth is facing a lot of pressure. However, with the precision of various domestic policies, go deep and go solid, enterprises take the initiative to seek new progress, cope with difficulties, the first three quarters of China's foreign trade stable operation, the year-on-year growth rate is basically flat, and showed a positive development trend.
Lu Daliang said that specifically, the first is "stability", which is the fundamentals. First, the scale was stable. In the second and third quarters, both imports and exports exceeded 10 trillion yuan, maintaining a historically high level. Second, the main body is stable, in the first three quarters, China's foreign trade enterprises with import and export performance increased to 597,000, of which the import and export value of enterprises that have been active since 2020 accounted for nearly 80% of the whole; Third, the share is stable, according to our preliminary calculation, the first seven months, China's export international market share is basically the same as the same period last year. "Stability" is a solid foundation for the high-quality development of China's foreign trade, and it is also a concentrated reflection of the ability of foreign trade to resist pressure and stress.
Lu Daliang pointed out that while stable, the current operation of foreign trade also showed a "good" positive change: first, the overall trend is good. The scale of imports and exports expanded quarter by quarter, and the monthly trend was good. Especially in September, in the case of less than three months and less than one working day, the scale hit a new monthly high in the year, if excluding the impact of working day differences, imports and exports in September increased by 0.9% year-on-year. Second, the vitality of private enterprises is good. In the first three quarters, the monthly import and export growth rate of private enterprises was higher than the overall, the export proportion of private enterprises' self-branded products increased by 0.7 percentage points to 22.7%, and the brand awareness of automobiles, construction machinery, consumer electronics and other fields was further improved. Third, there is good market potential. In the first three quarters of this year, China's imports and exports to emerging markets such as Central Asia, Africa and Latin America increased by 33.7%, 6.7% and 5.1%, respectively, all higher than the overall growth rate of China's foreign trade. Recently, China's imports and exports to traditional markets such as the European Union and the United States have also improved significantly. Fourth, the platform has developed well. In the first three quarters of this year, the import and export of China's 21 pilot free trade zones reached 5.65 trillion yuan, an increase of 4.6 percent, accounting for 18.3 percent of China's total foreign trade. The import and export of the Hainan Free Trade Port increased by 20.3 percent.
Regarding the next trend of foreign trade, Lu Daliang said that recently the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund have expressed concerns about the fragmentation of global trade, and the WTO has lowered the growth rate of global trade in goods this year from the previous forecast of 1.7% to 0.8%, indicating that the world economic recovery and sustainable development still face great challenges. The external environment facing China's foreign trade is still complex and severe. However, we should also see that the positive factors of China's economic recovery are still accumulating, with the steady scale of China's foreign trade and the continuous advancement of the excellent structure, the foundation of "stability" is more solid, and the "good" changes will be more prominent, we have reason to have confidence in achieving the goal of promoting stability and improving the quality of foreign trade throughout the year, and continue to play the supporting role of import and export on the economy.
