China's Exports Fell By 14.6% In March. What's Wrong With It?

The official explanation is that the Spring Festival is relatively late this year, and most of March is still in the first month of the lunar calendar. If this factor is eliminated, exports will drop by 4.4% in March, narrowing by more than 10 percentage points. Although this interpretation is understandable, there is still a deeper reason for the shift from 1~2 month growth to the decline in March.

First, external Weak market demand 。 The new export orders index of the purchasing managers' index of manufacturing industry released by the National Bureau of statistics in March dropped 0.2 percentage points compared with February. The new export orders index of China's export guide index released by the General Administration of Customs dropped by 2.1 percentage points compared with that in February, and external demand shrank. In March, in the main export markets of China, except for India's exports increased by 1%, the other major export markets declined year-on-year. For example, exports to the US, ASEAN, Brazil and South Africa decreased by 7.7%, 8.9%, 8.4% and 5.3% compared to the same period last year. Even more severe, exports to the EU dropped by 18.7%, exports to Japan decreased by 24.4%, and exports to Russia decreased by 50.2%.

Second, RMB Exchange rate remains strong It also makes the situation worse. The bank's real effective exchange rate, announced by the bis in September last year, was broken for 5 consecutive months in February. It is expected that the record will be broken in March this year. In the context of weak external demand, the continued rise of the RMB exchange rate has become another obstacle to blocking exports. In March, the appreciation of RMB against the euro and yen increased significantly, exacerbating the deterioration of exports to the EU and Japan.

Third, the comprehensive cost remains high and the export advantage is weakened. Although recent Raw material cost Compared with the same period last year, however, the cost of labor, financing and environmental protection remained high, and the traditional competitive advantage of foreign trade was being weakened. Customs General Survey of nearly 3000 export enterprises showed that in March, 56.2% of enterprises reflected the year-on-year increase in the total cost of exports, of which 61.8% thought that the labor cost increased year by year. 37.5% of the enterprises thought that the cost of financing was on the rise, and 33.4% of the enterprises thought the exchange rate cost increased. Exports of traditional labour intensive products, which are most sensitive to cost, have also declined. Textile products have dropped by 28.8%, clothing by 35%, bags and bags by 19.3%, furniture by 15.2%, shoes by 26.5%, plastic products by 24.4%, and toys by 21%.

In fact, it is not difficult to answer the question of how China exported in March. The difficulty is how to say clearly what China's exports should do in the future and what the government should do. What should the enterprises do?

For the government, since last year, the state has issued a series of policies and measures to support the steady growth of foreign trade, and business, customs, quality inspection, taxation and other departments have also issued supporting measures. But what the government should do at present is to really grasp the implementation of these policies and measures, so that foreign trade enterprises can really enjoy the dividend policy. All sectors of foreign trade should further strengthen coordination, support each other and cooperate with each other to form a joint effort to enhance the confidence of foreign trade enterprises and create a favorable environment.

For foreign trade enterprises, we should see these "reassurance" of the government departments. But as the main body of foreign trade, enterprises should not only watch the government sing "one-man show", but also actively and actively engage in technological transformation, product upgrading and business mode innovation, transform from low-end manufacturing to high-end manufacturing, promote development with innovation, and enhance their international competitiveness and risk tolerance.