Under the background of increasingly complicated and severe international environment and unexpected factors exceeding expectations, stabilizing foreign trade has become an important support for China's steady growth. According to the data released by the General Administration of Customs a few days ago, China's foreign trade import and export increased by 10.7% year-on-year, maintaining a positive growth year-on-year for seven consecutive quarters, achieving a hard-won "steady progress" and laying a good foundation for achieving the annual import and export targets.
The steady progress of foreign trade in the first quarter is inseparable from the solid support of China's macro-economy. In recent years, China's overall economic and social development and COVID-19's epidemic prevention and control have always maintained a leading position in the world, and the industrial chain and supply chain have been running smoothly. Coupled with China's complete industrial production system and obvious supporting advantages, it has laid a solid foundation for the development of foreign trade.
The emphasis on stabilizing foreign trade reflects the risks and challenges faced by China's foreign trade development to some extent. Especially since the beginning of March, the epidemic distribution in many places in China and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine have continued to ferment, which has brought great pressure on the production and operation of some foreign trade enterprises and the stability of supply chain.
The blocking points and blocking points in some foreign trade industrial chains have changed from external circulation to internal circulation, and their negative effects have been directly reflected in the changes of monthly data-in March, the overall growth rate of imports and exports declined.
However, China's foreign trade import and export has achieved positive year-on-year growth for seven consecutive quarters since the third quarter of 2020, indicating that China's advantages of strong foreign trade resilience and great potential still exist, and there is still a solid foundation for stable foreign trade growth. Some market institutions predict that although the external environment is uncertain and unstable, the growth rate of China's foreign trade may decrease, but the overall growth momentum is expected to continue.
The more complicated the situation, the more we need to plan ahead and respond positively. On the one hand, it is necessary to closely follow the situation, accurately analyze and judge, strengthen the analysis and research on major issues and risks in the field of foreign trade, and promote the implementation of various favorable policies and measures that have been introduced.
On the other hand, it is necessary to pay more attention to strengthening and improving services to foreign trade enterprises, help the majority of market players to actively cope with new situations and problems encountered in production and operation, and constantly stimulate the market vitality of foreign trade enterprises.
In this regard, we have tasted the sweetness. According to statistics, in the first quarter, the number of foreign trade enterprises with import and export performance in China reached 432,000, up 5.7% year-on-year. The import and export growth of private enterprises was 14. 1%, which was 3.4 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of foreign trade.
While stabilizing the market main body and the basic foreign trade market, we should pay more attention to the quality and efficiency of foreign trade growth and enhance the ability of China's foreign trade to participate in the division of labor and competition in the international value chain. Objectively speaking, there are many favorable and unfavorable factors affecting China's foreign trade development at present, but the most fundamental thing is that the fundamentals of China's strong economic resilience, great potential and long-term improvement have not changed.
In this regard, we should not only face up to the current difficulties and challenges, but also strengthen our confidence in the stable growth of foreign trade in the future, put policies such as tax reduction and fee reduction in place, make full use of financial and insurance measures to benefit enterprises, pay close attention to trade facilitation measures, put innovation and development in a more prominent position, and promote the development of foreign trade to a higher level and higher quality.