With the appreciation of RMB, foreign trade enterprises will carry forward the burden.
The appreciation of local currency has a dual nature, and the key lies in how to turn unfavorable factors into favorable ones. The appreciation of RMB actually provides favorable factors for the adjustment and upgrading of China's industrial structure.
Just after Christmas, China's foreign exchange market brought another "generous gift" to RMB. On February 29th, 2006, the central parity of RMB exchange rate in the inter-bank foreign exchange market broke through the integer mark of 7.8 1, hitting a new high since the exchange rate reform.
The continuous appreciation of RMB has undoubtedly brought great influence to all walks of life, and the most direct influence is foreign trade. Although the government's intervention in RMB has been reduced after China's entry into WTO, RMB appreciation has become a market awareness, and many enterprises have made corresponding preparations, even so, the continuous appreciation of RMB has had a great impact on the operation of foreign trade enterprises.
Give foreign trade enterprises a level playing field.
Theoretically speaking, currency appreciation does not actually affect the value of import and export commodities, but only changes the relative price of commodities in international trade and weakens their competitiveness in the international market. A 3% appreciation of RMB is equivalent to a 3% increase in the cost of export products and a 3% decrease in export competitiveness. After the appreciation of a country's currency, the foreign currency price of export commodities rises, the foreign demand for this commodity drops, and the export scale is limited. At the same time, the decline in the local currency price of imported goods will stimulate domestic demand for imported goods and expand the scale of imports.
At present, China's export products are mainly primary products and labor-intensive processing products, while high-tech and high value-added products are few. In particular, foreign-funded enterprises mainly processing materials are at the end of the global industrial chain, with low profit margin and insufficient value-added ability. Foreign-funded enterprises set up factories in China based on China's abundant human resources and low prices. After the appreciation of RMB, it will undoubtedly offset some of the cost advantages brought by human capital, and China's product exports will drop significantly. The person in charge of a lighting company said helplessly that although the company received an overseas order of $9 million last year and handled some forward foreign exchange settlement to prevent risks, it still lost $6.5438+0.89 million due to the appreciation of the RMB.
China's export enterprises are affected by the appreciation of RMB to varying degrees. Industries that enjoy export low-interest loans, export tax rebates and even domestic export subsidies are relatively lightly affected. Most of those who enjoy preferential treatment are industries with weak competitiveness. In order to win over subsidy income, relevant industries or local governments try their best to maintain production, and these industries can barely survive by subsidies. However, many industries that are not optimistic are competitive. Due to the lack of government subsidies, production and exports were affected, resulting in the first closure, resulting in reverse elimination, leading to the deterioration of foreign trade industrial structure.
Many China manufacturers export products with low added value and low technology content. Some export products cause pollution in the production process, and some enterprises fail to invest in pollution prevention and control according to regulations. Therefore, the production cost is relatively low. After the appreciation of RMB, it has little influence on the export of these enterprises' products. On the other hand, law-abiding manufacturers are not as competitive as the former because they bear the cost of environmental protection. After the sharp appreciation of the RMB, they were unable to export and forced to close down, resulting in the unfair phenomenon that law-abiding manufacturers were eliminated and offenders continued to survive.
The appreciation of RMB provides opportunities for industrial restructuring.
After the appreciation of RMB, some foreign trade enterprises can't bear this risk. The fundamental reason is that their products have low technical content and low added value, so they are at a disadvantage in global competition and cannot win in fierce competition. Therefore, the appreciation of RMB once again sounded the alarm for the industrial structure of foreign trade enterprises.
Indeed, China is facing the challenge from a big foreign trade country to a powerful one. The continuous upgrading of production technology and industrial structure of enterprises in China is the key to change the foreign trade situation. Among Asian countries, South Korea and Japan experienced a difficult period of currency appreciation. The yen appreciated by 45% from 1985 to 1986, which dealt a heavy blow to the export-oriented Japanese economy. During this period, Japan's economic growth rate dropped from 4.9% to 2.5%.
However, through the adjustment of industrial structure, Japan gradually stepped out of the shadow of the appreciation of its currency in a few years. According to a survey by the Bank of Japan, the shrinking export industry has made a large part of domestic funds invested in high-tech and high value-added industries. Many manufacturers of computer, communication technology and electronic products not only turned from export market to domestic market, but also turned from manufacturing to non-manufacturing, which accelerated the development of the tertiary industry. Judging from Japan's development experience, the appreciation of the local currency is twofold, and the key lies in how to turn unfavorable factors into favorable ones. The appreciation of RMB actually provides favorable factors for the adjustment and upgrading of China's industrial structure.
To achieve industrial upgrading, it is necessary to realize the technology-intensive industrial structure as soon as possible. Only in this way can we narrow the gap between China and developed countries and contribute to the healthy development of foreign trade.
The appreciation of RMB has become a trend, and it is an important task to turn pressure into motivation and realize the healthy development of foreign trade industry. Under the background of RMB appreciation expectation, enterprises should have risk awareness and take relevant measures. In order to avoid the benefits and reduce risks brought by RMB appreciation, some enterprises choose to cooperate with export credit insurance companies. After paying a certain amount of bank interest and fees, the enterprise will lock in the future RMB income, and the insurance company will bear the trade losses caused by RMB appreciation. According to Zhang Qingfeng, deputy general manager of Zhejiang Huatian Group, this practice is quite common in Shaoxing textile export enterprises. Zhu, director of the international business department of Shanshan Group, also said that when they signed export contracts with foreign investors, although they did not directly increase the export unit price of their products because of the appreciation of the RMB, they generally negotiated privately with the long-established credit relationship between the two sides. If the RMB appreciates, foreign businessmen will consider giving some economic compensation. The appreciation of RMB has become an important consideration when signing foreign trade contracts.
Government and enterprises join hands to deal with foreign trade exchange rate risk
The insiders believe that under the background of increasingly fierce competition among export enterprises, foreign businessmen are willing to accept the demand of China enterprises to increase the export unit price of their products, which shows that foreign businessmen have higher expectations for the appreciation of RMB and the extent of appreciation. The price increase of China's export commodities is about 4%, which is within the expected range of foreign investors' appreciation of RMB. In addition, under the influence of the "special protection" of Europe and the United States on China's textiles, China's textile exports to Europe and the United States will be significantly reduced, which will promote the price increase of textiles in overseas markets, which is one of the reasons why foreign businessmen are willing to accept the price increase requirements of China textile enterprises.
For the government, governments at all levels should comprehensively use various economic levers such as tax, price, finance, credit and interest rate to optimize the structure of import and export commodities through economic, legal and administrative means. Use the relevant policies of WTO to give export subsidies or increase export tax rebates to related products within the scope permitted by WTO agreements, so as to improve the international competitiveness of products and make up for the decrease in foreign trade income brought about by RMB appreciation, thereby optimizing the import and export structure of products, improving trade balance and reducing inflation brought about by exchange rate changes.
Due to the appreciation of RMB, the investment expressed in the same RMB can be converted into more foreign currencies, which relatively reduces the cost of foreign investment, and is conducive to domestic enterprises in China to invest overseas and develop transnational operations. The United States and Japan adopted the strategy of overseas capital expansion during the period of sharp appreciation of their currencies in the 1980s. In the era of economic globalization, it is a full embodiment of a country's competitiveness for enterprises to go abroad to realize transnational operation. China should learn from the successful experience of the United States, Japan and other countries, encourage enterprises to avoid risks and reduce production costs by expanding overseas production scale, at the same time, expand domestic demand, improve the efficiency of capital use, promote the adjustment of domestic industrial structure, and accelerate the pace of overseas investment.
Judging from the national economic development strategy, although developing foreign trade is an inevitable choice for China's rapid economic growth, it is quite dangerous for China, as the most populous developing country in the world, to rely solely on the export-oriented strategy. Dependence on foreign countries is an index to measure the extent to which a country's economy is affected by external economy. This index has a moderate range in different countries and different stages of economic development, and the bigger the better. From the perspective of China's foreign trade, the import and export led by foreign-funded enterprises has accounted for more than half of China's total foreign trade, and the export is mainly processing trade. Therefore, processing trade has become the main driving force for the rapid growth of China's exports. Therefore, China should appropriately adjust its foreign investment policy, reduce its dependence on foreign investment, further promote the coordination and integration of tradable goods industry and non-tradable goods industry while changing the mode of trade growth, cultivate and develop non-tradable goods industry, and leave more high-quality resources and assets on its own land. Only in this way can it be possible to change the situation that the higher the export volume, the lower the economic efficiency China is now facing.