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The State Council Press Office held a press conference at 10 am on Wednesday, January 13th, 2016, and invited Huang Songping, spokesman of the General Administration of Customs, to introduce the import and export situation in 2015 and answer questions from reporters.
The picture shows the press conference.
Hu Kaihong:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the press conference of the State Council Information Office. Today, we invited Mr. Huang Songping, spokesman of the General Administration of Customs, and asked him to introduce the import and export situation in 2015 and answer your questions. Let’s ask Director Huang to introduce the situation first.
Huang Yuping:
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to today’s press conference. It’s a pleasure to meet you and report on China’s foreign trade import and export in 2015, and then answer your questions.
In 2015, the overall recovery of the global economy was weak, the prospects were difficult and tortuous, the downward pressure on the domestic economy was great, and the development of foreign trade entered a new normal. According to customs statistics, in 2015, the total import and export value of China’s goods trade was 24.59 trillion yuan, down 7% from 2014. Among them, exports were 14.14 trillion yuan, down 1.8%; Imports were 10.45 trillion yuan, down 13.2%; The trade surplus was 3.69 trillion yuan, up 56.7%.
In the complicated and severe situation, the development of foreign trade still presents some positive changes and highlights, mainly in the following aspects:
First, the mode of trade is becoming more reasonable. With the vigorous promotion of the State Council’s "steady growth and structural adjustment" measures, the import and export value of China’s general trade in 2015 was 13.29 trillion yuan, down 6.5%, accounting for 54% of the total import and export value, accounting for 0.3 percentage points higher than the previous year; Of which exports increased by 2.2%.
Second, the diversification of trading partners has made positive progress. In 2015, the European Union, the United States and ASEAN were my top three trading partners, with bilateral trade values of 3.51 trillion yuan, 3.47 trillion yuan and 2.93 trillion yuan respectively. In the same period, China’s trade with ASEAN, India and other emerging markets performed relatively well, with the bilateral trade value with ASEAN slightly decreasing by 0.6% and India increasing by 2.5%, both of which were better than the overall situation of import and export.
Third, the foreign trade of private enterprises shows vitality. In 2015, the import and export of private enterprises in China was 9.1 trillion yuan, a slight decrease of 0.2%, accounting for 37% of the total import and export value, an increase of 2.5 percentage points; Of which exports increased by 3.1%.
Fourth, the structure of export commodities was further optimized. In 2015, China exported 8.15 trillion yuan of mechanical and electrical products, up 1.2%, accounting for 57.7% of the total export value, up 1.7 percentage points from the previous year. In the same period, the total export value of seven categories of labor-intensive products, such as textiles, clothing, luggage, footwear, toys, furniture and plastic products, was 2.93 trillion yuan, down by 1.7%, accounting for 20.7% of the total export value; Among them, the export of toys, furniture, luggage and plastic products maintained growth.
5. The import volume of some bulk commodities maintained growth, and the terms of trade further improved. In 2015, the import volume of some bulk commodities in China kept increasing. Among them, imported iron ore was 953 million tons, an increase of 2.2%; 334 million tons of crude oil, up 8.8%. In the same period, China’s import prices generally fell by 11.6%. Among them, the prices of iron ore, crude oil, refined oil, soybeans, coal and copper fell deeply. In the same period, China’s export prices generally fell by 1%, which was significantly smaller than the overall decline of import prices in the same period. From this calculation, China’s trade price terms index was 112.1 in 2015, which indicated that a certain number of goods exported by China could be exchanged for 12.1% more imported goods, which meant that China’s trade price terms were obviously improved and the foreign trade benefits were improved.
The picture shows Huang Songping, spokesman of the General Administration of Customs, introducing the import and export situation in 2015.
At the same time, we must also see that there are still some difficulties in the development of China’s foreign trade. For example, in 2015, China’s bilateral trade with the EU and Japan decreased by 7.2% and 9.9% respectively; The import and export of foreign-invested enterprises and state-owned enterprises decreased by 6.5% and 12.1% respectively; The import and export of processing trade decreased by 10.6%. In December 2015, China’s foreign trade export leading index was 31.2, down 0.8 from November, indicating that China’s export pressure was still relatively high in the first quarter of this year.
Faced with the severe and complicated foreign trade situation, the Customs will resolutely implement the decision-making arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council in accordance with the overall arrangement of the Central Economic Work Conference, and promote the stable growth, transformation and upgrading of foreign trade.
Now I’d like to answer your questions.
Hu Kaihong:
Thank you, Director Huang. Let’s start asking questions. Please inform the news organization you represent before asking questions.
CCTV reporter:
In the data you just released, the import and export volume of foreign trade showed a double decline in 2015. What do you think of this? Besides, I noticed that this situation only happened once in the case of the global financial crisis in 2009, and it happened again in 2015. What do you think may be the reason?
Huang Yuping:
In recent years, China’s economy has been more deeply integrated into the world economy, and the development of foreign trade has also entered a new normal development stage with the low growth of the global economy. 2015 can be said to be a year in which the international and domestic situation of China’s goods trade has been more complicated and severe since the new round of global financial crisis. Although the import and export values have declined, through the joint efforts of the whole country, our exports are obviously better than those of the major economies in the world, and the market share has increased compared with the previous year. The drop in import value is large, mainly due to the sharp drop in international commodity prices. This is our overall evaluation of China’s import and export performance of goods trade in 2015.
According to our analysis, the double decline of China’s foreign trade import and export in 2015 has the following specific factors: from the perspective of exports, the main reason is the sluggish external demand. Since 2008, the international financial crisis has destroyed the growth momentum of the world economy, and the overall recovery of the international economy is weak, which has led to a period of deep adjustment of global trade, thus inhibiting China’s export growth. I have just introduced that the export value of China’s mechanical and electrical products only increased by 1.2% in 2015, down by 1.4 percentage points from the previous year. The export value of traditional labor-intensive products decreased by 1.7%, which is also a rare situation in recent years.
This is also confirmed by the global export situation announced by the World Trade Organization. Since 2015, the global export value has experienced a sharp decline, which is rare in recent years. According to the data released by WTO, in dollar terms, the global export value declined by more than 11% in the first 10 months of 2015, which was a decline again after the global financial crisis broke out in 2009. As I mentioned just now, in 2015, China’s exports were significantly better than those of the major economies in the world. In dollar terms, China’s exports fell by 2.5% in the first 10 months, while US exports fell by 6.5%, EU by 13.2% and Japan by 9.5% in the same period.
From the perspective of imports, I will first talk about two sets of data. The first set of data is the price of crude oil in the international market. In 2015, the futures price of NYSE light crude oil was around $50 a barrel at the beginning of the year, and rose to $60 a barrel in the middle of the year, but fell below $40 a barrel by the end of the year, which was more than 40% lower than the year-end peak. By the beginning of 2016, the price is close to $30 per barrel. In the past year, the average import price of our crude oil also dropped from 2856 yuan per ton at the beginning of the year to 2020 yuan per ton in December, with a cumulative decrease of 29.3%. The average import price for the whole year dropped by 45.3% compared with the previous year. The second set of data is the CRB price index of commodities of the US Bureau of Commodity Investigation. This index fell to the level of the global financial crisis in 2008 in 2015. Since May 2014, the CRB price index began to drop sharply from 500 points. Although it rebounded slightly in the first half of 2015, it generally showed a downward trend. By the end of 2015, it fell to 380 points, down 24% from the highest level of the previous year. In January 2016, the index continued to fall to 370 points, approaching the level of 300 points from the end of 2008 to the beginning of 2009 during the global financial crisis. In 2015, the average import prices of bulk commodities such as iron ore, coal, refined oil and copper in China also fell, with year-on-year declines of 39%, 21.8%, 38.3% and 17.1% respectively.
The sharp drop in the prices of major commodities in the world has actually confirmed the slow recovery of the world economy and the sluggish demand. Of course, as China’s economic development enters a new normal, the domestic economy is facing greater downward pressure, and the growth rate of some bulk commodity imports has also slowed down. In 2015, China’s crude oil imports increased by 8.8%, iron ore imports increased by 2.2%, while coal, copper and steel imports decreased by 29.9%, 0.3% and 11.4% respectively, all of which were lower than the previous year. Therefore, the sharp drop in global commodity prices and the slowdown in the growth rate of commodity imports are important reasons for the decline in China’s import value in 2015. Thank you.
Phoenix TV reporter:
We have seen that the exchange rate of RMB has depreciated sharply in these two days except these two days. I’d like to ask you, considering the trend of RMB exchange rate, what do you think of the impact of exchange rate on import and export in 2016?
Huang Yuping:
Recently, the exchange rate has changed rapidly. The change of exchange rate will affect China’s import and export situation to a certain extent. This year’s foreign trade situation, various factors will affect the import and export of foreign trade, and the impact of exchange rate depends on the specific changes in exchange rate this year. We will continue to pay attention to the changes in exchange rate and trade.
Nigerian national television reporter:
Import and export trade between China and Africa in 2015 and between China and Nigeria. Is the trade between China and Nigeria balanced? If it is unbalanced, which side will benefit more? And how to make China-Nepal trade more balanced?
Huang Yuping:
In 2015, the import and export of bilateral trade between China and Africa was 1.11 trillion yuan, down 18.3% year-on-year, of which 0.67 trillion yuan was exported, up 3.6%, and 0.44 trillion yuan was imported, down 38.4%. Imports and exports with Nigeria were 92.7 billion yuan, down 16.3% year-on-year, of which exports were 85 billion yuan, down 10.1%, and imports were 7.7 billion yuan, down 52.8%.
In 2015, Nigeria was China’s third largest trading partner and second largest export market in Africa. China’s exports to Nigeria are mainly mechanical and electrical products and textiles, while imports are mainly commodities such as logs and crude oil.
China’s adherence to opening-up and development and its economic and trade cooperation with African countries, including Nigeria, must be mutually beneficial and win-win.
Last December, the Supreme Leader of president met with Nigerian President Buhari. I believe that in the future, as long as the two sides make joint efforts, give full play to the two advantages of traditional friendship and strong economic complementarity, enhance political mutual trust, close friendly exchanges and deepen cooperation in various fields, they will certainly promote the all-round and rapid development of friendly and mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries. Thank you.
Russian Tass news agency reporter:
My first question is about Sino-Russian trade in 2015. The second question is, Sino-Russian trade seems to have declined last year. Can it stabilize and rebound this year? Thank you.
Huang Yuping:
In 2015, the total bilateral trade between China and Russia was 422.73 billion yuan, down by 27.8%. Among them, exports to Russia reached 216.24 billion yuan, down 34.4%. Imports from Russia were 206.49 billion yuan, down 19.1%, and the trade surplus was 9.75 billion yuan, narrowing by 86.9%.
Last year should be a severe and complicated year for international trade. This year’s situation, we think, is still rather severe and complicated. Whether there can be a positive trend in Sino-Russian trade, I think, one depends on the economic situation of the two countries and the international environment and situation. Thank you.
Xinhua News Agency reporter:
Last year, both our import and export declined, but you also mentioned that the quality and efficiency of our foreign trade have improved. What are the main aspects? How do you expect the situation of our foreign trade import and export this year? Is it as severe as last year? Thank you.
Let me answer the second question first. In 2016, there will be no obvious improvement in the situation of low world economic growth and sluggish external demand, and China’s foreign trade development still faces many difficulties. However, as long as we follow the unified decision-making arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, grasp the correct direction, push forward our work in a down-to-earth manner, accelerate the formation of a new pattern of foreign trade opening-up and actively cultivate new advantages in international competition, I think with the continuous advancement of China’s comprehensive deepening reform and opening-up process, various measures to promote the steady growth of foreign trade will be gradually put in place, and all the work to promote foreign trade development will achieve tangible results, and we will certainly achieve higher quality and more effective development.
In terms of quality and efficiency last year, we have improved. Although trade faces many difficulties, thanks to hard efforts in all aspects, China’s foreign trade has also achieved new results in optimizing its structure, and it has also made outstanding achievements in upgrading quality, efficiency and upgrading, and being superior in entry and exit, mainly as follows:
First, it has maintained its position as the largest country in global trade in goods. At present, China is already the world’s largest country in goods trade and the largest exporter. Combined with the trade situation of the world’s major economies, China will still maintain the position of the world’s largest total value of goods trade in 2015, and its export market share will reach 13%, which will continue to improve compared with the previous year.
Second, emerging trade formats have injected new vitality into foreign trade. Since 2015, China’s emerging trade formats have thrived, and the state has launched a series of new measures to promote the rapid development of emerging trade formats such as cross-border e-commerce and market procurement. For example, since the pilot, by the end of November 2015, seven pilot cities, including Shanghai, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Zhengzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, had launched cross-border electronic commerce’s retail import business, and inspected and released 100 million packages with a value exceeding 15.5 billion yuan.
Third, excellent entry and excellent exit have achieved new results. In 2015, the trade mode, trade subject, commodity structure, market diversification, terms of trade and contribution to economic and social development also showed a trend of continuous optimization. For example, the proportion of general trade exports and the proportion of private enterprises’ imports and exports have all increased; Mobile phone exports increased by 8.8%, medical instruments and instruments exports increased by 7.2%, and exports to emerging markets such as ASEAN, India, Latin America and Africa increased by 1.1 percentage points; On the import side, more attention is paid to the import of advanced technology, key equipment and important spare parts. In 2015, the import of high-tech products in China increased by 0.7%, accounting for 32.6% of the total import value, up by 4.5 percentage points.
As for this year’s expectations, we have also noticed that the media are concerned about this year’s foreign trade growth target. I don’t know the specific situation at present, and I suggest you learn from relevant departments. Thank you.
China Net reporter:
Excuse me, Director Huang, we have noticed that in 2015, China’s trade with the EU and Japan declined to a great extent, while its trade with emerging markets such as ASEAN and India increased significantly. How do you interpret these changes? At the same time, in the face of the difficulties in the foreign trade situation this year, what measures do you think our customs will take this year to promote the convenience of the business environment? Thank you.
Huang Yuping:
Just now, we introduced that the import and export of emerging markets, such as ASEAN, have only slightly declined, and the situation is still relatively good. For India, we are growing. At present, the economic situation of emerging market countries is relatively good and the political situation is relatively stable, which has promoted the trade development between China and these emerging markets. In particular, emerging markets have gradually become an important direction for China’s exports.
This year, the customs has also introduced a number of policies and measures to support the development of foreign trade. For example, in terms of customs clearance reform, we have introduced customs clearance integration reform; In terms of reducing the cost of enterprises and facilitating customs clearance, we have also introduced some policies to improve the timeliness of customs clearance and reduce the export cost of enterprises. In addition, we have some measures to simplify administration and decentralize power, which have also been introduced in succession, mainly promoting the cancellation and decentralization of customs administrative examination and approval, and implementing the new requirements of standardized examination and approval in the State Council, establishing a new mechanism for standardized management of administrative examination and approval, comprehensively cleaning up matters involving intermediary services and optimizing internal merger matters, and actively exerting self-pressure. In addition, it also actively promotes some successful experiences of Shanghai Free Trade Zone. All these measures will promote the development of foreign trade. Thank you.
Nigerian national television reporter:
How do you predict the changes in China-Africa trade this year? Including imports and exports, if so, what are the reasons?
Huang Yuping:
As I said just now, the international economic and trade situation this year is still severe and complicated. I think the development of China-Africa trade can not be separated from this general environment. Whether the bilateral trade between China and Africa is developing in a good direction or in a more severe situation depends on the specific situation in the future. We will pay close attention to the development of China-Africa trade, actively create a good customs clearance environment and convenient conditions for China-Africa trade, and also support our enterprises to "go global" and develop good economic and trade relations with Africa. Thank you.
Hu Kaihong:
Today’s press conference is over. Thank you, Director Huang, and thank you all.
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