Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Today we are going to talk about a topic that we often come into contact with, but seldom think about carefully: import.

In recent years, we always seem to talk about going out to sea, and many Chinese enterprises have gone overseas. The global layout of Chinese enterprises has become more and more obvious, and they have built up their own influence in the global market.

Going out to sea is like saving a ship and buying a ticket in the era of great navigation, so that we always seem to talk about exits, but seldom about imports.

Under the circumstances of such a developed domestic supply, the revitalization of domestic products and the rise of the national tide, how much value does import still have to us?

It is the fifth year that the Expo has been held this year, why do we have to do national exhibitions with import as the theme?

Hello, everyone. I'm the curator who takes you to the Expo. Let's talk about this issue. Is import still important to us? And what does China's import trade mean to the world?

Status quo: from born babies to strong young people, first of all, let's take a look at a set of data to look at the changes in China's import trade over the past 40 years.

Come on, guess how many times China's import market has expanded compared with 1978?

The answer is: nearly 928 times.

In January 1979, 3000 cases of bottled Coca-Cola ushered in a new era of rapid growth in China's import market. However, in the early days of reform and opening up, China's import and export of goods accounted for only 0.8% of the international market share, ranking 29th in the global trade in goods.

In the more than 40 years after the reform and opening up, China's rapid economic development has led to the rapid growth of national consumption power, as well as the consumer demand for goods at home and abroad.

In 2009, China overtook Germany to become the second largest importer. Since 2013, China has surpassed the United States to become the largest country in global trade in goods, and has maintained this position for three consecutive years. In 2017, China's imports and exports accounted for 11.5 percent of the world, and trade in goods returned to the first place in the world, with exports accounting for 12.8 percent and imports accounting for 10.2 percent.

Even two years after the global trade was hit hard, in 2021, the total value of China's imports and exports of goods still reached 39.1 trillion yuan, an increase of 21.4% over the same period last year. Of this total, imports totaled 17.37 trillion yuan, an increase of 21.5% over the same period last year.

Compared with the toddler stage at the beginning of reform and opening up in 1979, our import trade can be said to be a young man who can withstand the test of storms, with the ability and influence to change the world and the future.

02 strong imports, what does it mean to us? But at this point, some friends may want to ask: domestic consumption power is strong, why not consume domestic goods? Why encourage overseas brands to compete with our domestic brands? Is it necessary for us to vigorously develop import trade that consumes foreign exchange?

Here, my view is: this necessity is not only necessary, but also very necessary.

Why?

There are several main reasons for this.

First, strong imports represent our open attitude of embracing the world, economic globalization and multilateralism.

From the reform and opening up to the present, imports have strengthened year after year, which is an important manifestation of our embrace of opening up with high quality and high level of opening up.

Imported goods used to be "unattainable" to many consumers, and one of the reasons is that the import tax rate is higher.

For many industries in which we were still growing at that time, the higher import tax rate provided opportunities for domestic industries and brands to grow. With the maturity of these industries, our import tax rate has been gradually reduced in recent years. And many products from many countries have achieved zero tax rate, such as some dairy products from New Zealand, and so on. Industries such as automobiles have also relaxed quite a lot of restrictions in recent years. All these reflect our clear-cut attitude towards openness.

Second, unlike what many people think of as "competition", import trade is actually "competition and cooperation", which is the basis of cooperation and mutual learning.

It is often said that "ten miles of different sounds" is specific to the economic field, the different market environment and internal demand of each country has affected the investment focus of enterprises in different countries, which has brought about different relative location advantages, that is, comparative advantage.

At this Expo, more than 1.45 million fresh cut flowers and bulbs from the Netherlands have become a beautiful scenery. When enjoying the flowers, we can think carefully about the comparative advantages behind them.

The Netherlands has a population of about 17 million, but its land area is only more than 40,000 square kilometers, and it is low-lying and lack of light, which is very disadvantageous to agricultural development. Therefore, in fine agriculture, the investment is larger than that of other countries, and a modern greenhouse has been established, which accounts for about 1x4 of the total area of greenhouse in the world.

And in terms of industrial structure, the Netherlands has invested its limited resources in agricultural products such as flowers and fruits and vegetables. Naturally, in these areas, it is more likely to have products worth paying attention to.

Through import, that is, external competition and cooperation, in the agricultural field such as flowers, which is very mainstream to the Netherlands, but in the relatively subdivided areas of our country, there is the possibility of cooperation. so that minority market segments can also grow rapidly without the advantage of scale.

This is the value that external "concurrence" can bring.

On the other hand, more importantly, after foreign goods enter the market, it can also bring greater stimulus to the domestic industry and promote the domestic industry to make great strides forward.

Moreover, after overseas enterprises enter the Chinese market, there is often not only one way to sell goods, but also a very common form of cooperation with domestic enterprises-- from simple commodity imports to enterprises entering China, localized operation in China, localized production, is also a very common path.

For example, Tesla set up a Shanghai super factory from pure import to determining the demand of the Chinese market, opening the way for his own localized production in China.

In this process, both domestic joint ventures and upstream and downstream industries can learn from each other's advanced experience and reverse our high-quality experience to learn from each other.

In the past few sessions of the Expo, more than 1500 new products, new technologies and new services have been displayed, with a cumulative turnover of more than 270 billion US dollars.

More importantly, adhering to the concept of "turning exhibits into commodities and exhibitors into investors", many overseas enterprises participating in the exhibition have also begun to set up factories and invest in the central and western regions-- attracting overseas enterprises to make greater investment in the Chinese market. this forms a virtuous circle of complementarity and cooperation.

Moreover, from a complementary point of view, multi-party cooperation can also bring more opportunities for integration and development-just like without the introduction of chili peppers, there would not be today's rich and colorful Sichuan and Hunan cuisine.

Today, such chemical reactions also take place silently in every moment of China's import trade.

03 in front of the responsibility of a great power, we mainly talked about the value of imports to us. In fact, China's import market is equally important to the global economy.

As just mentioned, in 2009, China overtook Germany to become the world's second largest importer after the United States.

This means that a slight change in China's import trade is tantamount to a huge earthquake for the global economy, especially for some small and medium-sized countries that are highly dependent on China.

To give you a few examples, in the first half of 2021, the total trade volume between China and Peru reached US $14.59 billion, an increase of 72.7% over the same period last year. China remains Peru's largest trading partner and largest export destination. Peruvian products produced and sold to China include Peruvian coffee, Pisco, Peruvian squid, avocado, quinoa and so on. Behind each category is a huge economic industry on which the local people depend for survival.

In Afghanistan, for example, selling a carpet is a family's annual income.

At last year's Expo, Afghan businessman Ali brought 2 tons of carpets, which are the annual income of 2000 Afghan families.

At the same time, Afghan specialty Brazilian pine nuts are also being sold live through Chinese e-commerce. Afghan families, ravaged by war and terrorism, have thus established ties with Chinese consumers thousands of kilometers away, working together to make the chill less and the goodwill more.

From the perspective of longer-term industrial reform, China has also become the EU's largest source of imports of high-tech products and the second largest export destination. Under the tide of globalization, we will accelerate our own industrial upgrading with the outstanding works of other countries.

There is a paragraph in this year's "Government work report": "expand a high level of opening up to the outside world, promote the steady development of foreign trade and foreign investment, make full use of the two markets and two kinds of resources, and constantly expand foreign economic and trade cooperation." promote in-depth reform and high-quality development with a high level of opening up. "

Benign opening up and cooperation with the outside world must not be "only in and out". The so-called trade all over the world must be going back and forth, going back and forth, you have me, and I have you.

Over the past 40 years, China has demonstrated its value and strength as the world's second largest import market in global trade, and has demonstrated to the world the demand and possibility of China's huge consumer market through repeated fairs in recent years.

This is also showing the world that the future development of China will also drive the development of the global economy, and China's opportunities will also be global opportunities.

Every opportunity can be fleeting, and only when we run hard together, stretch out our hands and hold it firmly, can we seize the opportunity that belongs to us, seize the future that belongs to us, and turn the future into what we want it to be.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: IC Lab (ID:InsightPlusClub), up main: Xinhua News Agency bilibili official account x IC Lab, reporters: Zhou Lin, Zhou Rui, Sun Qing, consultant: Bai Ming, Deputy Director of International Market Research Institute, Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce

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