Affected by the financial crisis in 2008, the global economy, especially the economies of the United States, the European Union, Japan and other countries, was significantly impacted and the situation was sluggish. Even the IMF published an article saying that 2009 will be the year in which economic development was most affected by the economic crisis after World War II. As the United States, the European Union and Japan are China's top three foreign trade partners, their economic decline or even recession will have a significant impact on China's foreign trade.

Generally speaking, China's foreign trade situation in 2009 is grim and not optimistic, which is mainly manifested in the following points:

1, the export was blocked, and the import and export trade volume dropped significantly.

According to the statistics of China Customs in the first two quarters of 2009,

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Import and export trade volume (USD 100 million)

Year-on-year growth rate (%)

2009 0 1

14 17.8

-29. 1

2009 02

1249. 1

-25

2009 03

16 19.9

-20.9

2009 04

1707.3

-22.8

2009 05

164 1.2

-25.9

Note: Data are from official website of China Customs.

1. 1 Due to the financial crisis, the foreign consumer market is weak.

China's main partners in import and export trade are the United States, the European Union and Japan. However, these countries and regions have been hit by the economic crisis and have experienced economic recession to varying degrees. Although all countries have taken measures to stimulate the economy and the economy has begun to show signs of recovery, the reflection on the financial crisis has changed the consumption pattern, and the economic expectation is not optimistic, resulting in weak import consumption. This result will directly lead to the lack of international consumer market for China's commodities, shrinking exports and bankruptcy of many enterprises engaged in processing industry.

1.2 The rising cost of enterprises has weakened the competitive advantage of our products.

Since the second half of 2007, the prices of means of production and consumer goods have experienced a round of price increases. Although the CPI index and PPI index have decreased continuously recently, this has not offset the increase in production costs caused by other reasons. For example, China promulgated a new labor law to raise the wages of workers; In the financial crisis, the bad debts of commercial banks made banks reluctant to lend, and the financing difficulties and financing costs of enterprises increased. In recent years, China has paid more attention to energy conservation and environmental protection, and the expenses of enterprises in energy conservation and environmental protection have increased; Wait a minute. This series of factors directly increase the production cost of enterprises and reduce the competitive advantage of our products with high quality and low price, thus increasing the difficulty of export.

1.3 RMB appreciation, impacting the settlement system centered on the US dollar.

As we all know, in the international trade business, most of the transaction settlement currencies use US dollars, but the United States itself has also been severely hit by the financial crisis, the economic downturn, and at the same time the domestic fiscal deficit has expanded, and the Federal Reserve began to print and print US dollars, which led to the depreciation of the US dollar. At the same time, China holds a large amount of foreign exchange in US dollars, which, coupled with a sustained foreign trade surplus, has promoted the appreciation of the RMB. According to law of one price, the price of China products denominated in US dollars has risen, which has hindered the export of China goods.

2. The structure of China's export commodities has been optimized.

In China's import and export trade, the main feature is to exchange cheap low-end products such as textiles and toys for expensive imports such as airplanes, mechanical equipment and special steel products. But the outbreak of the financial crisis provides us with an opportunity. China has advocated industrial upgrading for several years, and although it has achieved initial results, it has not achieved much. However, in 2009, with the opportunity created by the financial crisis, we will vigorously transform traditional industries, abandon the production of products with high pollution, high energy consumption and low added value, actively cultivate intensive, intensive and high added value sunrise industries, actively explore the international market and promote the export of high-tech products in China.

Since Guangdong Province took the lead in putting forward the idea of "changing cages for birds" at the end of 2008, China's industrial upgrading has been gradually accelerated, and the strategy of promoting trade through science and technology has achieved remarkable results in optimizing the structure of export products. The data of foreign trade in the first five months of 2009 show that at present, China's export products are mainly electronic products, household appliances, auto parts and textiles. The proportion of traditional export commodities, mainly textiles, shoes and toys, declined.

3. China accelerates the pace of foreign direct investment.

Affected by the financial crisis, there is a widespread phenomenon of "poor money" in various economies around the world, and companies in many countries are short of funds. Faced with this situation, China, which has strong foreign exchange reserves, has been "hunting the bottom" on a global scale, buying strategic resources such as minerals and oil. Typical examples are Chinalco's shareholding in Rio Tinto and Minmetals' shareholding in OZ, which on the one hand improved the shortage of resources in China, and on the other hand increased China's right to speak on the pricing of international resources markets. With the rapid economic growth in China for several years, the resource bottleneck has gradually emerged, which has limited the sustainable development of China. At the same time, the huge foreign exchange reserves are shrinking, which brings losses to China's national wealth. Instead of sitting idly by and watching foreign exchange shrink, we should throw foreign exchange into the international market and buy the resources and technology that China's economic development urgently needs. As a result, pioneers represented by large state-owned enterprises began to accelerate their global foreign investment. Although Chinalco's plan to enter the main extension as a state-owned enterprise was finally rejected by Australia, this did not prevent private equity funds represented by "Shanxi Coal Industry Investment Fund" from investing overseas.

The crisis itself contains risks and opportunities. Although the financial crisis had an impact on China's import and export trade in 2009, it gave us an opportunity to speed up the pace of developing trade through science and technology. On the one hand, the products whose exports are blocked are converted into domestic sales, so as to develop the domestic market and reduce dependence on foreign trade. On the other hand, we should actively "change cages for birds" and develop industries such as design, logistics and finance that were dominated by the West in the past. We are not afraid of industrial transformation, and we are not afraid of the price paid in the process. Only in this way can China's foreign trade be restored and revitalized in the second half of 2009 and continue to develop reasonably, healthily and rapidly!