On July 24, China issued the Several Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Promoting the Steady Increase in Imports and Exports. The Opinions consisting of seven points shows the latest efforts made by the Chinese government for stabilizing foreign trade. It also bears the expectation of China for realizing positive growth of exports all year round.

Customs data indicated that, in the first half of 2015, the total import and export value of China reduced by 6.9%, with the export value increasing by 0.9% and the import value reducing by 15.5%.

Obviously, the Chinese government is not so worried about the sharp reduction of imports, because, to a large extent, it should be due to the continuous low international price of bulk commodities. Such situation is actually more beneficial to China, which is a major consumer of bulk commodities in the world. Zhang Ji, Assistant Minister of Commerce of the PRC, said that more commodities were imported at lower price in the first half of the year, and USD77 billion was saved in the import of eight categories of commodities.

It is widely believed that the continuous appreciation of RMB in recent years has been weakening the competitiveness of the export enterprises of China. Since this year, the relative depreciation of the currencies of the major economies has led to the passive appreciation of RMB and imposed heavier burdens on the export enterprises. Under such circumstance, basically stable RMB exchange rate will be helpful for stabilizing the expectations of the enterprises and alleviating the burdens on them. It is also a core task under the “seven-point” Opinions to alleviate the burdens on enterprises.

Another focus under the “seven-point” Opinions is to develop new advantages in foreign trade export. Related data indicated that, in the first half of the year, the export of complete sets of equipment of China had an increase of 10% so that it is considered a major contributor to the rising trend of the overall foreign trade. Based on that, the Opinions issued on July 24 also encourages the Chinese equipment to “go global”. In the future, more related trade facilitation measures will be adopted.

Following the establishment of (China) Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, the construction of three new pilot free trade zones has been launched for more than two months. As another highlight for stabilizing foreign trade, it is proposed under the Opinions that duplication and promotion of the trade facilitation measures for free trade zones should be accelerated and “single window” mode for international trade should be piloted at the coastal ports. It means that the experience of the pilot free trade zones will be promoted to a larger extent. This will greatly boost the foreign trade development of China.

Compared with the series of policies and measures adopted early for stabilizing foreign trade, the “seven-point” Opinions emphasizes more on the implementation of related measures. Therefore, supervision is enhanced to guarantee that related measures will be put into practice in an effective way. This makes people full of expectation for the rebound of foreign trade in the second half of the year.

Source: excerpts from www.chinanews.com