Thoughts on Accelerating the Transformation of Foreign Trade Growth Mode

Affected by many factors such as rising raw material prices, rising labor costs, increased financing costs caused by tight monetary policy, weakening external demand, and appreciation of the renminbi, from January to July 2008, national exports increased by 22.6% year-on-year. Compared with the export growth rate slowed by 6 percentage points. What is more noteworthy is that the nominal growth of 22.6%, if deducted from the significant depreciation of the US dollar, the significant appreciation of the renminbi and domestic inflation, the actual growth rate will undoubtedly be greatly reduced. Among them, the export growth rate of labor-intensive industries such as textiles and clothing has slowed down markedly; many small and medium-sized enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions have stopped production or even closed down. From a phenomenological point of view, this is of course a manifestation of the economic downturn; but from the perspective of long-term development, the many dilemmas faced by exporting enterprises are precisely a good opportunity to promote the upgrading of export enterprises and the transformation of exporting countries to foreign trade growth. The key issue is to further clarify the ideas for transforming the growth mode of foreign trade and to identify the focus of work.

First, we must change the way of transforming foreign trade growth as a systematic project.

As one of the "troikas" that drive economic growth, the steady and rapid growth of foreign trade is undoubtedly of great significance for maintaining a steady and rapid growth of the national economy. From a near-term perspective, it is imperative to adjust foreign trade policies in a timely and flexible manner to prevent the ups and downs of foreign trade growth.

In the long run, we must develop new ideas and take new measures in accelerating the transformation of foreign trade growth. Nowadays, people talk about changing the growth mode of foreign trade, which is limited to the narrower vision of optimizing the import and export structure and expanding the export of high-tech products with independent intellectual property rights. It is precisely a systematic project to accelerate the transformation of foreign trade growth mode. To change the growth mode of foreign trade, we must turn to the goal of foreign trade growth, and take the diversification of foreign trade business, the diversification and advancedization of foreign trade products and services, and the optimization of foreign trade regional structure, with market demand as the basic orientation. Focusing on cultivating internationally competitive multinational corporations, and ensuring the expected results by implementing a coordinated and flexible foreign trade policy system and implementing overall coordination and linkage.

From this point of view, it is obviously not enough to explore the way to transform the growth mode of foreign trade in terms of foreign trade itself. We must first make new breakthroughs in the areas of development goal orientation, cultivation of export subjects, and improvement of foreign trade policy environment, and create new ways to transform foreign trade growth. Good prerequisites.

Second, strive to achieve four fundamental changes to lay a solid foundation for maintaining stable and rapid foreign trade growth

First, the goal of foreign trade growth should be driven by a single export to stimulate economic growth to enhance the country's overall economic competitiveness and ensure a stable and rapid development of the macro economy. As the saying goes: The way of thinking determines the way out. Since the reform and opening up, China's foreign trade growth has been largely locked in short-term goals such as export earnings and domestic economic growth. It is precisely because of this goal orientation that the state has introduced a series of fiscal and taxation policies that encourage exports, so that foreign trade growth has been leaping forward. However, with the deepening of the external dependence of domestic economic development, coupled with the current continuous surplus of current and capital projects, and increasingly diverse trade frictions, it is obviously not enough to simply focus on the growth and growth of foreign trade. It is necessary to further rise to the higher level of improving the overall competitiveness of the national economy and ensuring the stable and rapid development of the macro economy, to plan the direction of foreign trade development. Only in this way can it meet the requirements of the scientific development concept.

Second, the growth pattern of foreign trade should be changed from the pattern of foreign-invested enterprises and state-owned enterprises in the “two-point world” to the private enterprises, foreign investment, and state-owned “three-point world” pattern. It is worth pointing out that 58% of China's current exports are completed by foreign-invested companies. According to the data of the private economy blue book in 2007, the total import and export volume of private enterprises reached 307.66 billion US dollars in 2006, an increase of 37.1%, accounting for only 17.5% of the total import and export volume of the country, an increase of 1.7 percentage points over 2005. According to statistics, in the five years from 2002 to 2007, the total export value of non-state-owned enterprises (domestic capital) increased nearly 10 times, from 32.77 billion US dollars in 2002 to 297.68 billion US dollars in 2007, but it accounts for national exports. The proportion increased from 10.1% in 2002 to 24.4% in 2007. From the point of view of quotas, although the export of private enterprises has grown rapidly, so far, in the pattern of foreign trade, private enterprises do not occupy the dominant position and cannot play a leading role. Even in Zhejiang, where the private economy is more active, the export value of private enterprises in 2007 only accounted for 48.2% of the province's total exports. Considering that export-oriented foreign companies are more integrated with local low-cost labor and raw materials, it is not excluded that foreign capital has the possibility of transfer and contraction as domestic labor and raw material costs rise; state-owned enterprises have specific identity characteristics. In addition, many foreign countries have high vigilance and prevention against China's state-owned enterprises, especially monopolistic state-owned enterprises, and their products have certain limitations. All of this forces us to accelerate the development of private enterprises and vigorously expand the variety of private enterprises. From the perspective of development, we will strive to build a new structure for foreign trade diversification with the export of private enterprises as the main body.