Under the policy overweight, stabilizing foreign trade also requires enterprises to strengthen endogenous power

Recently, the domestic epidemic has spread in many places, and the international environment is complex and severe. Many domestic foreign trade enterprises are trapped under the pressure and challenges of logistics and cash flow. In order to better cope with the downward pressure on foreign trade this year, the government work report at the beginning of the year put forward the expected goal of "maintaining the stability and improving the quality of import and export" and made a series of arrangements to stabilize foreign trade. The opinions on promoting the stability and quality improvement of foreign trade (hereinafter referred to as the opinions) issued by the general office of the State Council recently also aims to help foreign trade enterprises cope with difficulties and challenges, achieve the goal of maintaining the stability and quality improvement of import and export, and help stabilize the economy and stabilize the industrial chain supply chain. The policy overweight has indeed brought confidence to foreign trade enterprises, and indeed provided a main line for stabilizing foreign trade under the special situation at home and abroad this year. But in addition, foreign trade enterprises themselves should also make good use of the policy dividends, enhance the endogenous power of their own development, and turn crisis into opportunity under the complex and changeable situation.
The market orders are fragmented and the arrangement of orders is unstable. The profits of most products are greatly narrowed due to the rise of raw materials and transportation costs. Some products cannot be produced, and those that can be produced have no international competitiveness... This is a common phenomenon that the author found when communicating with foreign trade enterprises in recent years. In fact, even compared with the first outbreak in 2020, the situation today is very different. Many foreign trade enterprises are also thinking about this situation, that is, the elimination of the traditional foreign trade model is the inevitable result of market development, and the arrival of the epidemic has only accelerated this process. At present, many Chinese foreign trade enterprises (including export-oriented manufacturing enterprises) are only staying in the competition of relatively low-end products, and many enterprises are only competing for the labor wage difference in different regions, The previous barbaric development and extensive business model are difficult to sustain.

Looking around China, it is not difficult to see that the change in the foreign trade order environment now not only faces the threat that the low-end industrial chain is preempted by Southeast Asian countries. It also faces the impact and reconstruction of raw materials, labor costs, logistics costs and other aspects. Some of these are short-term, but some of the underlying systemic crises will also lead China's foreign trade enterprises and their supply chains to usher in a painful period, that is, the relevant enterprises will either be out of the market or transform to high-end manufacturing.

In order to help foreign trade enterprises tide over difficulties, the government also put forward relevant policies and measures in the opinions. It mainly includes: first, ensuring the stability of production and circulation in the field of foreign trade, strengthening the guarantee of production and operation of foreign trade enterprises, effectively and orderly opening up sea and airport collection and distribution, and further reducing the waiting time of international liner; Make good use of the air freight capacity, ensure the transportation of important parts, equipment and products, improve the customs clearance and operation efficiency of railway ports, and promote the smooth transportation of foreign trade goods; Strengthen market supervision in the field of international maritime transport, and enhance the function of maritime logistics services to stabilize foreign trade. Second, increase financial support for foreign trade enterprises, guide cross-border e-commerce enterprises to make full use of the current export tax rebate policy, and support qualified cross-border e-commerce related enterprises to apply for high-tech enterprises; Increase export credit insurance support for foreign trade enterprises to further develop diversified markets; Support banking institutions to meet the reasonable capital needs of enterprises, and increase import and export credit support; For small, medium and micro foreign trade enterprises, increase support for export credit insurance in terms of underwriting coverage and shortening claim settlement time, expand the scale of credit insurance policy financing, and further strengthen financial support; Provide more training, consultation and other public services in exchange rate hedging, and accelerate the improvement of foreign trade enterprises' ability to cope with exchange rate risks; We will carry out pilot projects to facilitate RMB settlement of trade and investment at a higher level in an orderly manner, and continue to optimize the RMB settlement environment for cross-border trade. Third, we will further help foreign trade enterprises seize orders and expand the market. Optimize and innovate the online exhibition mode, support small, medium-sized and micro enterprises to participate in overseas exhibitions by means of "domestic online conversation and overseas offline commodity exhibition", and promote enterprises to make good use of online channels to expand trade transactions. Fourth, stabilize the supply chain of the foreign trade industry chain, cultivate a new batch of import trade promotion innovation demonstration zones, and strengthen the cultivation and construction of import promotion platforms.
While making full use of relevant policies, foreign trade enterprises should not only realize the transfer of products to the high-end of the industrial chain as soon as possible through technological research and development, but also strengthen the endogenous power of development in the following aspects at this stage:
First, keep up with the fragmentation trend of OEM orders and make good use of the advantages of cross-border e-commerce. With the development of information and communication technology, a large number of B2B and B2C platforms have emerged, and retail terminals have also begun to appear as "small B". Under the trend of expelling profits and personalization, offline competition has gradually emerged online. The flexibility of cross-border e-commerce can just make up for the shortcomings of traditional manufacturing industry and foreign trade. Enterprises should be good at using this new business model to expand the sources of international market demand information, establish Internet online sales channels, make the foreign trade chain more flat, reduce intermediate links as far as possible, quickly master marketing channels and demand feedback, and reduce transaction costs. The emergence of cross-border e-commerce is also conducive to enterprises with relatively mature manufacturing processes, creating their own brands and getting rid of the low-end dilemma of the value chain.
The second is to explore a new model of customer development, and try foreign trade social marketing in line with their own development. Some foreign trade enterprises still rely on exhibitions, payment platforms and traditional online platform search to develop customers. However, under the epidemic, many exhibitions have been postponed or held online, and the traditional online platform is also difficult to provide strong support for the development of new customers. In this situation, foreign trade enterprises should further refine their own services and improve their service standards and requirements. At present, some mature foreign trade enterprises are building their own independent websites and further mining EDM marketing resources on this basis. At the same time, try to give full play to the characteristics of independent stations, such as telling enterprise stories and product features, and promote and channel through communities, forums, social media, etc. At present, the foreign trade social marketing promotion that is increasingly flourishing in the foreign trade circle is to tap the advantages of social marketing promotion by virtue of the sharing and sharing function of SNS website, so as to achieve precise marketing for target users, which is also a new model.
Third, we can try overseas positions on a small scale. For the cross-border industry, overseas warehouse is regarded as an effective delivery method to solve the logistics difficulties of cross-border e-commerce, such as high logistics costs, long delivery time and poor buyer experience. It is a major breakthrough in the cross-border e-commerce logistics model. Some qualified foreign trade enterprises can monitor the stock according to the indicators of procurement, operation and logistics talents, and try overseas warehouses on a small scale to realize the dynamic management of normal stock.