In 2020, Global trade decreased significantly. However, under difficulties and pressure, China's foreign trade development performance in 2020 exceeded expectations.

According to the data released by the General Administration of customs, in the first quarter, China's total import and export value decreased by 6.4% year-on-year. Among them, exports decreased by 11.4% year-on-year; The trade surplus decreased by 80.6% year-on-year. However, in March, foreign trade import and export rebounded.

After a short-term shock in the first quarter, the year-on-year growth rate of China's exports and imports both changed from negative to positive in June. In addition, the total value of imports and exports and export value in November both reached the highest monthly record since statistics were available in 1979, and the export growth rate also reached a new high since February 2018, significantly exceeding market expectations.

2020 has gone and 2021 has come. What is the trend of foreign trade in 2021? Can we maintain this year's rise and continue to explode orders?

Highlights of foreign trade in 2021

Under difficulties and pressure, China's foreign trade industry's innovation ability has been continuously enhanced, which is embodied in three aspects: foreign trade subject, product structure and new business economic model.

First, the main body of foreign trade continues to grow. The export of private enterprises increased by 12.2%, raising the overall growth rate by 6.2 percentage points. Second, export products continue to climb up the value chain. The proportion of exports of mechanical and electrical products increased to 59.3%. The export of high-tech and high value-added products such as integrated circuits, computers and medical devices was strong, with growth rates of 14.8%, 10.7% and 44.5% respectively. Third, the business environment has been continuously optimized. The rapid growth of cross-border e-commerce, market procurement and trade exports has played an important role in effectively connecting the domestic and international markets and stimulating the vitality of small, medium and micro foreign trade subjects.

In addition, China's share of foreign trade has further increased in the international market. According to Nomura data, China's share of global exports rose to more than 13% in the second and third quarters of 2020, the highest quarterly record since Nomura began statistics in 2006, accounting for 11% last year. UBS economists also estimated that as of July 2020, China's share of global exports had increased by 11% year-on-year. At the same time, the share of the United States had decreased by 4% year-on-year and that of France had decreased by 12%.

Export trend in 2021

For the future trend of China's foreign trade in 2021, a basic judgment is——

In the short term, the situation of rapid export growth will continue to be maintained; In the long run, with the global vaccination next year, the gradual recovery of overseas production capacity will have a certain impact on China's foreign trade, and the export may return to a new stable state.

This means that the time window for foreign trade transformation and upgrading is not very long. We must seize the favorable opportunity to make up for the short board as soon as possible.

The higher the foreign trade is, the more attention should be paid to innovation and development. At present, the traditional foreign trade development model can no longer meet the needs of changes in the external situation. There is an urgent need to take high-quality development as the main line and shape the new advantages of China's foreign trade in international market competition with innovative development.

In this regard, the general office of the State Council recently issued the implementation opinions on promoting the innovative development of foreign trade, put forward precise measures from nine aspects such as optimizing the layout of the international market and the investment of innovative elements, and made redeployment to accelerate the innovative development of foreign trade. It can be predicted that with the accelerated implementation of the above measures, it is expected to give birth to more new forms and models of foreign trade, which will inject more new momentum into China's high-quality economic development.

There is policy support inside and dividend of the times outside. We can see from many data that the cross-border e-commerce market is still large and has great development prospects in the future.