Expand import and escort China's foreign trade, stable and balanced development
The industry insiders believe that as the economy moves toward a high-quality development stage and the pace of household consumption upgrades accelerates, China will continue to actively expand its openness and promote the rapid development of imports, and continue to spill the Chinese economy's economic growth dividend to the world.
Imports achieve long-term development
The first China International Import Expo held in early November set off a climax of China’s initiative to expand imports. In fact, since the beginning of this year, the growth rate of China's imports has maintained a rapid growth. In January of this year, the growth rate of imports was as high as 30.2%. Except for the import growth rate in February, which was slightly lower due to the base and the Spring Festival, the monthly growth rate was above 10%. In the first 11 months of this year, China’s imports have reached 12.96 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.6%.
Yang Changyong, deputy director of the Comprehensive Research Office of the Institute of Foreign Economic Research of the National Development and Reform Commission, said in an interview with the International Business Daily that the rapid growth of imports was mainly affected by China's macroeconomic stability, the introduction of a series of expansion measures, and the rise of global commodity prices. .
Xu Yingming, deputy director of the International Market Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, said in an interview with the International Business Daily that China’s consumption structure has been continuously upgraded, which has led to a strong growth in high-quality, internationally renowned brands and high-quality products of various countries and the demand for organic ecological food. At the same time, the steady increase in imports has also benefited from the country’s policy of actively expanding imports and the new economy’s new model and new formats.
In fact, over the past 40 years of China's reform and opening up, important changes have taken place in the import pattern. “The characteristic is that the scale of imports is expanding continuously and the structure is continuously optimized.” Yang Changyong said that in terms of scale, the growth rate of imports has obviously exceeded that of exports, and has become an important force for the gradual balance of foreign trade; in terms of structure, advanced technology and equipment, Imports of key components and consumer goods continued to rise, and rapid growth was achieved through the import of emerging trade formats. General trade imports were expanding, and the status of developing countries along the “Belt and Road” in China’s imports is rising.
Xu Yingming pointed out that in the past 40 years, in addition to the increase in the scale of imported goods and the more optimized structure, China's trading partners have become more diverse and market players have become more active. Driven by the “Belt and Road” construction and the free trade zone strategy, South Korea has surpassed Japan to become China’s largest source of imports for two consecutive years. In the proportion of total imports, the import of foreign-invested enterprises fell from more than half of before 2011 to 46.79% of last year, private enterprises accounted for 29.43%, and state-owned enterprises accounted for 23.78%.
The quantity increase quality will not change
“In the new era, China’s imports are shifting from a high-speed growth phase to a high-quality development phase.” Xu Yingming stressed that China’s expansion of imports is still in the ascendant, especially as China continues to adhere to the concept of open development, and the “One Belt, One Road” construction is developing in depth. The quality of development will be more focused on meeting the people's longing for a better life. Imports will also maintain a development trend of increasing quantity and quality.
Yang Changyong also believes that China's imports will maintain the current growth. The reasons include four aspects: First, China's per capita GDP has reached middle and high income levels, consumption upgrading is obvious, demand for quality consumer goods and services will increase significantly; Promote the construction of the “Belt and Road” and build the world's first national-level exposition platform with the theme of import. The importation of “One Belt, One Road” has great potential; the third is the vigorous development of emerging industries, and the scale of cross-border e-commerce imports will grow rapidly; It is China's stable international balance of payments and sufficient foreign exchange reserves, which is conducive to continued expansion of imports.
In Xu Yingming's view, the role of further release of imports can take four major measures: First, to face the "Belt and Road" construction, let the world share market dividends; second, to make full use of imports to promote the introduction of high-tech products and the accumulation of advanced production factors, Promote the development of domestic emerging industries and the upgrading of industrial structure, and promote the high-quality development of China's economy; the third is to expand green imports around green development; the fourth is to revolve around the needs of the people for a better life, and to increase the sense of the people through imports.