How to promote foreign trade to maintain stability and improve quality
Foreign trade is one of the "Troika" driving economic growth and plays an important role in stabilizing the economy and promoting development. The the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee meeting held at the end of April put forward that "consumption should play a leading role in the economic cycle" and "stabilize the basic market of foreign trade and foreign investment". Not long ago, the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Promoting the Stability and Quality of Foreign Trade, which systematically and comprehensively deployed 13 measures to promote the stability and quality of foreign trade. Under the impact of the epidemic in the century, the situation of China’s foreign trade development has become more severe and complicated. Therefore, we should fully understand the importance of promoting the stability and quality of foreign trade, adhere to scientific judgment, make precise policies, and unswervingly promote the stability and quality of foreign trade by ensuring smoothness, promoting innovation, building markets and grasping implementation.
Persisting in promoting the stability and quality of foreign trade is an inevitable requirement for expanding high-level opening up. Foreign trade is an important indicator to measure the level of opening up. Promoting the stability and quality of foreign trade is not only reflected in "quality" and "quantity", but also in policies to make foreign trade policies more fair, transparent and predictable. We should not only ensure the basic stability of import and export scale, but also focus on improving the quality of goods and services and promoting the high-quality development of foreign trade. We should also strive to create a market-oriented and legalized international business environment and achieve a high level of opening up.
Insisting on promoting the stability and quality of foreign trade is the realistic need of China’s foreign trade development. In the first half of this year, China’s foreign trade achieved steady growth, and the total import and export value of goods trade reached 19.8 trillion yuan, up 9.4% year-on-year. At present, the development of foreign trade still faces some unstable and uncertain factors, and there are still many pressures to ensure stability and improve quality. From the domestic point of view, the domestic epidemic situation has been distributed more and more this year, which has a great impact on the stability of the industrial chain and supply chain of export enterprises and the smooth logistics and transportation. Internationally, repeated epidemics in various countries, constant geographical conflicts, rising international commodity prices, blocked international supply chain industry chain, rising shipping logistics costs and other factors have had a negative impact on China’s import and export enterprises. Risk challenges at home and abroad are increasing, and the task of keeping China’s economy running in a reasonable range is still arduous. In this context, it is more important to stabilize the basic market of foreign trade and foreign investment and promote the stability and quality of foreign trade.
Insist on promoting the stability and quality of foreign trade, we should treat the relationship between "stability" and "quality" dialectically, so as to promote quality with stability and increase stability with quality. "Stability" focuses on resisting shocks and minimizing the impact of uncertainty on foreign trade; "Improving quality" focuses on transformation and upgrading, constantly exploring new products, new formats and new models, so as to maintain strong momentum in foreign trade development. Although they have different emphases, they are closely related to each other. "Stability" is an important basis for "quality improvement", and the scale effect of foreign trade can dilute the cost of all links in the industrial chain, supply chain and so on; "Improving quality" is the fundamental guarantee of "maintaining stability", and international trade competition is basically the competition of innovation ability. Improving the quality of foreign trade helps to resist external shocks and short-term risks. Therefore, we should pay attention to both "maintaining stability" and "improving quality", both based on the present and focusing on the future, and jointly serve the overall situation of opening up.
On the one hand, it is necessary to ensure the stability and smoothness of the industrial chain supply chain. General Secretary of the Supreme Leader has repeatedly stressed the need to "ensure the safety of the industrial chain supply chain". Ensuring the stability of the industrial chain supply chain is the basis of smoothing the national economic cycle, which is related to key links such as foreign trade procurement, production and transportation. First, we must ensure production and supply. Strengthen the production and operation guarantee of foreign trade enterprises and solve the problems of materials, logistics and employment of enterprises. The second is to ensure smooth transportation. We will do our utmost to ensure the smooth flow of logistics and transportation, unblock the collection and distribution of sea and airport, improve the efficiency of operation and customs clearance, strengthen the docking and coordination with international air flights and freight trains, and make good use of international transportation capacity. The third is to ensure the stability of the industrial chain. Further deepen regional exchanges and cooperation and support the gradient transfer of labor-intensive foreign trade industries in China. In addition, we should actively use fiscal and taxation means to increase support for foreign trade enterprises in insurance, credit and financing, especially to strengthen financial support for small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises.
On the other hand, it is necessary to promote the innovation and development of foreign trade subjects, formats, platforms and markets. The core of "improving quality" is innovation, and enterprises should be encouraged to carry out green low-carbon trade with high quality, high technology and high added value. Promoting cross-border e-commerce to improve quality and efficiency is an important starting point for the high-quality development of foreign trade. It is necessary to strengthen policy guidance, support the development of overseas warehouse enterprises and build a smart logistics platform. At the same time, it is necessary to make good use of existing trading platforms, explore new paths of online trading, and strengthen the construction of foreign trade platforms, especially the cultivation and construction of import promotion platforms, so as to continuously improve the quality of import and export products.
It should be noted that building a unified national market is an important foundation for high-level opening up. Internationally, building a unified national market and cultivating new advantages in international competition and cooperation can enhance China’s influence in the global industrial chain supply chain innovation chain. Domestically, the construction of a unified national market can effectively smooth the domestic and international double circulation, promote the formation of a global gravitational field of factor resources, effectively utilize global factors and market resources, make the domestic market better connected with the international market, and bring new development opportunities for China’s foreign trade.
At present, various localities and departments are intensively introducing relevant measures to promote the stability and quality of foreign trade. The most important thing is to strengthen the system concept and do a good job in overall coordination in all links, levels and fields. It is necessary to prevent the policy fallacy of composition from being caused by the superposition of local reasonable policies, and to prevent the decomposition fallacy from being formed by simply dividing the overall task. It is necessary to establish a sense of "playing a game of chess", strengthen the cooperation and cooperation of various localities and departments, form a joint force of policies, and jointly promote the stability and quality of foreign trade.
[The author is a researcher at the Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought Research Center of the New Era, the supreme leader of the Central Party School (National School of Administration)]
(Editor: Guo Lijuan)