What are the challenges facing the development of foreign trade? How to do a good job in the business field next year?

The Central Economic Work Conference emphasized the need to stimulate potential consumption, expand effective investment, and form a virtuous cycle of mutual promotion between consumption and investment. It also emphasized the need to accelerate the cultivation of new drivers of foreign trade, consolidate the foundation of foreign trade and foreign investment, expand intermediate goods trade, service trade, digital trade, and cross-border e-commerce exports. What are the new characteristics and trends of China's consumer market this year? What are the challenges facing the development of foreign trade? How to do a good job in the consumer, foreign trade and other business fields next year? Recently, the reporter interviewed the heads of relevant departments and bureaus of the Ministry of Commerce.
Promote consumption to shift from post pandemic recovery to sustained expansion
Since the beginning of this year, consumption has continued to recover and expand. In the first 11 months, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 42.8 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.2%, playing an important supporting role in the recovery and improvement of the national economy.
The consumer market presents some new characteristics. Xu Xingfeng, Director of the Market Operation and Consumption Promotion Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said that firstly, commodity consumption has steadily increased. From January to November, sales of upgraded products increased rapidly, with sales of new energy vehicles increasing by 36.7% and penetration rate reaching 30.8%. The second is the accelerated recovery of service consumption. Consumer demand for accommodation, catering, housekeeping, culture, tourism, and other services is accelerating its recovery. From January to November, the service retail sales increased by 19.5% year-on-year; Catering revenue increased by 19.4%. Thirdly, online consumption has grown rapidly. From January to November, the national online retail sales reached 14 trillion yuan. The fourth is the flourishing development of intelligent consumption. Smart homes are accelerating their entry into people's lives, and sales of smart products such as smartphones and wearable devices are growing rapidly.
"We will focus on the implementation of various policies, stimulate potential consumption, and promote consumption to shift from post epidemic recovery to sustained expansion, providing strong support for consolidating and enhancing the positive trend of economic recovery and better meeting the needs of people for a better life." Xu Xingfeng said.
Organize the "2024 Consumer Promotion Year" event well. The "2023 Consumer Boosting Year" series of activities have achieved positive results, and the next step will focus on promoting continuous expansion of consumption, with 2024 designated as the "Consumer Boosting Year". We will adhere to the dual drive of "policy+activities", highlight key categories, festivals and seasons, continue to organize and carry out diverse consumer promotion activities, create more new scenes of integrated consumption of business, tourism, cultural and sports, and create a good consumption atmosphere.

Cultivate and strengthen new types of consumption. We need to vigorously develop digital consumption, strengthen departmental collaboration, support the healthy development of new formats and models such as live streaming e-commerce and instant retail, promote the digital transformation of traditional commerce, accelerate the digital empowerment of life services, carry out online themed promotions in conjunction with festivals, create new scenarios of digital and real integrated consumption, and stimulate the vitality of digital consumption. Expand green consumption, promote healthy consumption, and promote the consumption of domestic trendy products.

Stabilize and expand traditional consumption. We will implement the policies already in place, plan more incremental policies, and form a "combination punch" to promote consumption. Promote automobile consumption throughout the entire chain, encourage automobile renewal consumption, and focus on stabilizing new car consumption; Organize the promotion of new energy vehicles to rural areas to boost consumption of new energy vehicles; Improve the second-hand car information query platform and expand the circulation of second-hand cars; Promote the development of automotive aftermarkets such as racing events and RV camping, and promote the transformation of automobiles from transportation to consumer culture. Expand home consumption and promote home appliance consumption.
Promote the expansion of service consumption. We will improve supporting policy measures, study and formulate policy documents to promote the development of service consumption, stimulate the potential of service consumption, and promote the improvement and expansion of service consumption. Accelerate the digital empowerment of life services, promote the high-quality development of the catering industry, formulate relevant policy measures, hold the 2024 "Chinese Food Festival" series of activities, and create a hot spot in catering consumption. Actively expanding domestic service consumption, carrying out the "Life Service Recruitment Season" activity, implementing the skill upgrade action for domestic service staff, and focusing on improving the quality of domestic service.
Optimize the consumption environment. In cities, we will continue to deepen the cultivation and construction of international consumer center cities, gradually improve the urban commercial system led by pedestrian streets, supported by smart commercial districts, and based on convenient living circles, and facilitate residents' consumption. In rural areas, we will accelerate the filling of rural commercial shortcomings, develop rural e-commerce with high quality, build a well-equipped and two-way smooth rural circulation network, deeply implement "digital commerce promotes agriculture", facilitate the "going to the countryside" of industrial products and the "entering the city" of agricultural products, and unleash the potential for rural consumption.
Accelerate the construction of a trading powerhouse
How to view the development situation of foreign trade next year?
Li Xingqian, Director of the Department of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Commerce, said that the unstable momentum and insufficient momentum of the world economic recovery have led to sustained weakness in foreign demand, which has become the main factor affecting the trend of foreign trade. In such a large environment and background, China has maintained a basic stability in its international market share, especially with a high level of trade activity, which fully reflects the resilience of the Chinese economy and also demonstrates the confidence of China's development.
Li Xingqian believes that the difficulties and challenges faced by foreign trade development next year are mainly reflected in three aspects. One is that the trend of external demand is unpredictable. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that the global GDP growth rate in 2024 will be 2.9%, a decrease from 3% in 2023, with developed economies only growing by 1.4%. The second is the increase in non economic variables. Many geopolitical factors are likely to spill over into the economic and trade sectors, disrupting the smooth operation of global industrial and supply chains to varying degrees. Thirdly, trade protectionism is on the rise, with a significant increase in tariff and non-tariff trade barriers worldwide.
"At the same time, it should also be noted that some positive factors for stabilization and improvement are still gathering." Li Xingqian said, firstly, the consumer electronics industry is clearly recovering, and the industry predicts that the consumer electronics and semiconductor industries are coming out of a downward cycle. In recent months, the export of consumer electronics products such as mobile phones and home appliances has shown a significant rebound trend. Secondly, there is ample potential for new products and formats. The products leading the green and low-carbon transformation and upgrading, such as "New Three Types" and energy storage products, are in line with the needs of global energy development. New formats and models such as cross-border e-commerce, overseas warehouses, and bonded maintenance are flourishing. Thirdly, the dividends of opening up to the outside world continue to emerge, and bilateral economic and trade cooperation will usher in more convenient development conditions and broader development space. Overall, foreign trade has a persistent innovation capability and a stable, efficient, and resilient product supply chain, which will continue to maintain a steady and positive development momentum.
Li Xingqian said that in 2024, we will resolutely implement the spirit of the Central Economic Work Conference, cultivate new drivers of foreign trade, consolidate the basic situation of foreign trade and foreign investment, and promote the stabilization and improvement of foreign trade.
Introduce new policies. We will continue to implement the various stable foreign trade policies that have been introduced in collaboration with local governments and departments. At the same time, in response to new situations and tasks, research and reserve new policy measures, timely promote their introduction, and do a good job of publicity and interpretation.
Explore new markets. Continue to host important exhibitions such as the China International Import Expo and the Canton Fair, and support enterprises in participating in overseas exhibitions. Strengthen overseas market information services. Continuously promoting convenient cross-border business personnel exchanges. Promote standards to go global. Accelerate negotiations on free trade agreements.
Cultivate new driving forces. Accelerate the cultivation of new forms and models of foreign trade, promote cross-border e-commerce exports, expand the scope of bonded maintenance product catalogs in comprehensive bonded zones, and support the pilot landing of a batch of bonded maintenance and remanufacturing projects outside the zone. Expand intermediate goods trade and deepen international supply chain cooperation. Stimulate the dual driving forces of trade digitization and greening, and develop a catalog of green and low-carbon products for import and export. Promote the transformation and upgrading of processing trade, and support the orderly undertaking of industrial gradient transfer in the central, western, and northeastern regions. Promote the landing and processing of imported goods in border trade.
Actively expand imports. Improve the level of import trade facilitation, do a good job in cultivating national import trade promotion and innovation demonstration zones, and stimulate more import potential. Expand the import of technical equipment and raw materials, promote deep integration and efficient linkage between imports and industries. Increase the supply of high-quality agricultural and consumer goods imports.
Expand the global network of high standard free trade zones
Since the beginning of this year, China has continuously expanded its global network of high standard free trade zones and achieved a series of impressive results. Yu Benlin, Director of the Department of International Economic and Trade Relations of the Ministry of Commerce, said that China has signed 22 free trade agreements with 29 countries and regions. The free trade partners cover Asia, Oceania, Latin America, Africa and Europe. The trade volume between China and the free trade partners accounts for 1/3 of the total foreign trade volume. The network of high standard free trade zones based on the periphery, radiating the "the Belt and Road" and facing the world has achieved initial results.
New progress has been made in aligning with international high standard economic and trade rules. Proactively aligning with the rules of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Digital Economy Partnership (DEPA), and actively promoting the process of joining both agreements. This year, the Ministry of Commerce has promoted the introduction of several measures for the pilot docking of conditional free trade zones and free trade ports, and supported the overall plan for the comprehensive docking of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, in order to further explore paths and accumulate experience for deepening domestic reform.
The quantity and quality of signing free trade agreements with foreign countries have increased simultaneously. This year, we have achieved fruitful results in signing new agreements, signing three free trade agreements with Ecuador, Nicaragua, Serbia, and further upgrading protocols with Singapore. We have initiated negotiations on a free trade agreement with Honduras and substantially completed early harvest negotiations. We are actively promoting negotiations on the 3.0 version of the China ASEAN Free Trade Area, as well as negotiating or upgrading free trade agreements with the Gulf Cooperation Council, Peru, New Zealand, South Korea, and other countries.
The implementation and promotion of free trade agreements have achieved significant results. We will review the implementation status of various agreements with our free trade partners, adhere to a problem oriented approach, promote common high-quality implementation, and support local governments in formulating targeted docking and implementation measures in conjunction with free trade agreements such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
Yu Benlin said that in 2024, we will continue to expand our global network of high standard free trade zones, promote high-level opening up through free trade agreement negotiations, and promote high-quality development.
Further intensify the negotiation of free trade agreements. We will continue to promote the process of free trade cooperation with relevant countries and regions, and strive to further expand our country's free trade partner circle of friends. Strive to end the negotiations on the 3.0 version of the China ASEAN Free Trade Area, as well as the negotiation or upgrading of free trade agreements with Honduras and Peru, initiate a number of new free trade agreement negotiations with relevant countries, and continue to promote free trade cooperation with the Gulf Cooperation Council, Norway, New Zealand, South Korea, Switzerland, Bangladesh, and other countries.
Further enhance the level of openness of free trade agreements. We will use free trade agreement negotiations as a starting point to increase the proportion of zero tariff products in goods trade, and focus on comprehensively promoting the expansion and opening up of service trade and investment through negative lists, actively incorporating high-level economic and trade rules such as digital economy, green economy, standard certification, and government procurement. At the same time, we will actively promote accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Digital Economy Partnership (DEPA), actively compare relevant rules, continue to do a good job in independent opening up, and collaborate to carry out pioneering experiments, providing support for further improving the level of opening up of free trade agreements.
Further improve the utilization rate of free trade agreements. We will continue to implement existing free trade agreements with high quality, solve the difficulties faced by enterprises, help enterprises better enjoy benefits through promotion and training, further promote the free and convenient flow of goods, services, and investment within the free trade zone, and promote the deep integration of China's industrial and supply chains with free trade partners.