According to customs statistics, China’s import and export value in the first two months of this year was 6.18 trillion yuan, down slightly by 0.8 percent year-on-year. At the regular press conference of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade on March 29, Wang Linjie, spokesperson of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said that currently the weak recovery of the world economy, shrinking external demand, geopolitical conflicts and rising protectionism have caused a lot of difficulties for foreign trade enterprises to explore the market and obtain orders. China Council for the Promotion of International Trade will help enterprises to capture orders and expand the market in four aspects, and make more contributions to promoting stability and improving quality of foreign trade.
One is “trade promotion”. From January to February this year, the number of certificates of origin, ATA documents and commercial certificates issued by the national Trade Promotion System increased significantly year-on-year. The number of copies of certificates of origin issued by RCEP increased by 171.38% year-on-year, and the amount of visas increased by 77.51% year-on-year. We will accelerate the construction of digital trade promotion, develop “smart trade promotion all-in-one machine”, and greatly improve the intelligent facilitation of Certificates of Origin and ATA documents.
Second, “exhibition activities”. Since the beginning of this year, the Council for the Promotion of International Trade has completed the approval of the first batch of 519 applications to hold economic and trade exhibitions abroad, involving 50 exhibition organizers in 47 major trading partners and emerging market countries such as the United States, Germany, France, Japan, Thailand and Brazil. At present, we are stepping up preparations for the China International Supply Chain Promotion Expo, the Global Trade and Investment Promotion Summit, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Development Business Conference, the Global Industrial and Commercial Rule of Law Conference and other “One exhibition and three conferences”. In conjunction with the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, we are actively preparing for high-level and high-standard supporting entrepreneurial exchange activities. At the same time, we will support local governments in making good use of their own advantages and characteristics to hold “one province, one product” brand economic and trade activities.
Third, commercial law. China has strengthened international economic and trade arbitration, commercial mediation, intellectual property protection and other legal services, and extended its service network to local and industrial sectors. It has set up 27 arbitration institutions and 63 local and industrial mediation centers at home and abroad.
Fourth, investigation and research. Accelerate the construction of high-level application-oriented think tanks, improve the research mechanism for foreign trade enterprises, timely collect and reflect the problems and appeals of foreign trade enterprises and promote their solutions, identify the bottlenecks and pain points in China’s foreign trade development, and actively study to open up new courses in the field of trade development and create new advantages in the field of trade development.