Official Warning: Quanzhou'S Foreign Trade Is Approaching "Turning Point"

This is a satisfactory "report card".

In November 30th, the Quanzhou Municipal Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau held a meeting. The data released at the meeting showed that in the first 10 months of this year, Quanzhou's exports amounted to US $4 billion 51 million, an increase of 22.1%, which was only a short distance from the annual target of US $4 billion 682 million.

This is also a report card full of worries.

Under the influence of RMB appreciation, foreign technical barriers to trade, domestic processing trade policy tightening, especially the export tax rebate reduction, Quanzhou foreign trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau expects that the growth rate of foreign trade export in Quanzhou will likely decline a lot next year. The words "inflection point" and "pformation" will also appear frequently in the work report of Liu Mingliang, director of the foreign trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau.

Liu Mingliang, director of the Quanzhou Municipal Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau, said that the rapid growth of Quanzhou's foreign trade mainly benefited from two factors. First, while the growth of traditional markets in Europe and the United States was steady, India, Africa, South America's Chile, Panama and many other emerging markets all experienced over 40% growth.

"The demand for Quanzhou products is still strong in the international market, which is also the main reason for the rapid growth of Quanzhou's foreign trade."

Second, the export prices of traditional clothing such as shoes, clothing, plastic products, bags, stones and other traditional commodities, which rely heavily on Quanzhou's foreign trade export, have generally increased. Among them, the prices of two categories of clothing and shoes have increased by 12% and 15% respectively.

"The exports of these two categories of products occupy 40% of the total export volume of Quanzhou, and the raise of selling price has laid a good foundation for enterprises to deal with the export tax rebate adjustment," Liu Mingliang said.

In addition to exports, another important indicator of the situation of foreign trade and economic cooperation has also increased rapidly.

Data show that in the first 10 months, 366 new foreign-invested enterprises were newly approved in Quanzhou. Although this figure is much lower than the number of new enterprises approved by 524 last year, its foreign investment volume of 2 billion 648 million dollars has already far exceeded the total amount of contracted foreign investment last year, up 43.71%.

"When the number of investment enterprises is declining, the total investment will not decrease or increase. This shows that the amount of attracting investment in individual projects in Quanzhou has increased and the quality of attracting foreign capital has been further improved."

Liu Mingliang said.

During the period of attracting foreign investment, reporters read the foreign trade data of Quanzhou, and found that over the years, Quanzhou's foreign trade exports have maintained an extraordinary growth. However, recent news from the foreign trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau shows that this export oriented capacity release has reached a relatively balanced and saturated level under the influence of various uncertain factors, and the enterprise has entered a stage of meager profit.

Liu Mingliang believes that with the increase of unfavorable factors, it is not very realistic to achieve substantial growth in scale on the basis of ensuring profits and profits. The unfavorable factors mentioned by Liu Mingliang include not only the rise of raw materials, the appreciation of Renminbi and foreign trade barriers, but also the export tax rebate policy which just started in July.

Because of the lagging effect of the tax rebate policy, when the export tax rebate is issued, orders for enterprises have generally been received in September. Therefore, although this policy has a certain impact on enterprises, the total export volume has not changed, so it will not cause a sharp decline in foreign trade data.

However, in the survey conducted by the foreign trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau, enterprises generally reflected that the profits from export business were hard to maintain. With the release of orders from enterprises, Quanzhou's foreign trade exports had been difficult to maintain a relatively high growth rate. Under the circumstances of the new growth point that has not yet been formed, Liu Mingliang recognized that the slowdown in Quanzhou's foreign trade growth may occur in the first half of next year.

Based on this, the foreign trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau expects that the growth rate of Quanzhou's foreign trade next year may be between 10% and 13%, which is almost 10 percentage points lower than this year's growth rate.

In attracting investment, the situation is also not optimistic.

Liu Mingliang believes that the utilization of foreign capital in general production projects will be weak with the approaching of the merger of domestic and foreign capital income tax in the next year.

It has been learned that for a long time, Quanzhou's utilization of foreign capital is mainly based on traditional industries, especially small and medium-sized enterprises. In the new industrial policy, the merger of two taxes that will be implemented next year, plus the restrictions on land resources, environmental protection policies and the price of raw and auxiliary materials, the use of foreign capital in the traditional industry has entered a stage of restructure. Quanzhou's utilization of foreign capital will enter a stage of pformation.

The effect of the export tax rebate policy has shown that in recent years, journalists have been wandering around the industry. What they hear most is the concern that Quanzhou's foreign trade enterprises will face difficulties.

As early as a month ago, Zhou Yiyang, Deputy Secretary General of Fujian zipper chamber of Commerce, told reporters that many enterprises reflected that at this time of the year, orders from the clothing industry had made most zipper enterprises work overtime, but this year there was a shortage of orders.

Shortly afterwards, the news came out from the Quanzhou Leather Association almost the same news: many enterprises are facing closure because of the downturn in the downstream footwear industry.

"Spring River heating duck prophet".

Obviously, before the foreign trade bureau made the analysis of the "turning point" of Quanzhou's foreign trade export, the entrepreneurs who had worked hard in the market had already felt the chill from the market.

This time, the direct cause of the cold shoulder of the "veterans" who have been making waves for many years in the foreign trade is the emergence of the effect of the export tax rebate policy.

Yan Peikun, chairman of Jinjiang Foreign Trade Co., Ltd., told reporters that the profit mode of Quanzhou foreign trade enterprises is generally dependent on export tax rebates. Previously, the pressure of foreign trade enterprises in Quanzhou was not small because of the influence of the prices of raw and auxiliary materials, appreciation of RMB, and rising labor costs. After the adjustment of export tax rebate, the impact on enterprises will be inevitable.

In the era of market economy, whether or not we can successfully resist the negative effects brought about by various unfavorable factors depends on the enterprises themselves.

It is clear to everyone that the most effective way to deal with many unfavorable factors is to change the existing low value added foreign trade mode and enter the high-end with added value, but the change of foreign trade mode is by no means an overnight effort.

At present, the more realistic way is to raise the selling price as much as possible, and at the same time, from the enterprise's own management, we should increase our revenue and reduce expenditure.

But for small and medium-sized enterprises in the majority of Quanzhou's foreign trade industry, the price increase seems simple, but the real operation may not be recognized by the buyers.