This year's "Government Work Report" proposes to actively expand imports and promote balanced development of trade. In the complex environment of slowing global economic growth and rising trade protectionism, my country's initiative to plan balanced trade development is not only a strategic choice to deal with external economic and trade frictions, but also an intrinsic requirement to promote high-quality economic development. Experts said that better coordinating imports and exports will help serve domestic industrial upgrading and consumption upgrading, and promote the economy to achieve effective qualitative improvement and reasonable quantitative growth.
Share big market opportunities
Statistics show that my country’s import and export surplus of goods will be 8.5 trillion yuan in 2025.
"my country's trade in goods continues to maintain a large surplus. This is a concentrated reflection of my country's economic strength and industrial competitiveness, and is also an objective result of the deep integration of domestic and foreign markets and the interaction of supply and demand." Wang Xuekun, director of the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, said that my country has entered a stage of high-quality development, institutional opening-up is steadily advancing, and positive progress has been made in building a trade power.
my country has always adhered to the concept of openness and win-win and continued to expand imports. The scale of imports continues to rank among the top in the world. Imported goods and services cover many countries and benefit different industries. Our country has cultivated international consumption center cities and built import trade promotion innovation demonstration zones. In particular, it has continuously held CIIE and consumer expo, and more high-quality goods and services have entered the Chinese market. From 2021 to 2024, my country will import a total of 7.4 trillion yuan in consumer goods, making a huge contribution to global development.
Currently, global unilateralism and protectionism continue to rise, and the international trade environment is becoming increasingly complex and severe. Promoting the balanced development of imports and exports is not only a pragmatic choice to deepen international cooperation and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results, but also a key measure to serve high-quality development and promote a stable scale and optimal structure of foreign trade.
"Trade balance is one of the important signs of healthy development of foreign trade, and it is also an important support for coordinating the two domestic and international markets and resources to build a new development pattern." Han Ruidong, associate researcher at the Economic Forecast Department of the National Information Center of the National Development and Reform Commission, believes that promoting balanced trade development means tapping more import potential while giving full play to the supporting role of exports in the economy, achieving a basic balance of international payments, and forming a good situation in which exports and imports promote each other, and the domestic market and the international market are connected.
Zhao Fujun, director and researcher of the Comprehensive Research Office of the Foreign Economic Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said that starting from January 1 this year, my country has implemented a provisional import tax rate lower than the most-favored nation tax rate for 935 commodities, which will help expand the import of high-quality goods. At the same time, we will continue to expand service imports. In February this year, seven departments including the Ministry of Commerce revised and released the Catalog of Encouraged Imported Services, adding fields such as "medical and health services" and "other professional services" to proactively expand the import of high-quality services. These measures demonstrate my country's determination to actively expand imports.
Conditionally expand imports
At present, my country's economic operation is generally stable and making progress, which provides important support for expanding imports.
Wang Xuekun believes that the fundamentals of my country's long-term economic growth are solid, the domestic economic development momentum continues to strengthen, the advantages of the ultra-large domestic market are highlighted, the vitality of foreign trade operators is enhanced, and the international market layout is continuously optimized, which provides solid support and strong driving force for actively expanding imports and promoting balanced development of trade.
"my country's overall tariff level has gradually been reduced to 7.3%, and zero-tariff treatment is given to the least developed countries that have established diplomatic relations with 100% of tax items, and the import potential will continue to be released." Han Ruidong said that open platforms such as the Free Trade Pilot Zone, Hainan Free Trade Port, and the Comprehensive Pilot Program for Expanding the Opening of the Service Industry have developed step by step, and various exhibition platforms such as the China International Import Expo, the Consumer Expo, the Service Trade Fair, and the Chain Expo have become public goods for global shared development opportunities. These have provided strong policy support and platform guarantees for promoting trade balance.
It should also be noted that our country faces multiple challenges such as external environmental constraints and the import structure that needs to be optimized. Han Ruidong believes that my country’s imports of advanced technologies, key parts and other high-quality products account for a low proportion, and are poorly suited to the needs of domestic industrial upgrading and consumption upgrading.
The knock-on effects of geopolitical conflicts cannot be ignored either. Geographical conflicts have pushed up global logistics, energy, and raw material costs, and international shipping prices have fluctuated frequently. The trade controls and foreign exchange control measures implemented by some countries have increased the logistics costs and transaction risks of enterprises, and affected their enthusiasm for importing.
Stress is also turning into motivation. As my country's manufacturing industry moves towards high-end and intelligent manufacturing, the domestic market's continued demand for precision instruments and key components is forcing global suppliers to re-examine the Chinese market. This positive interaction of "demand driving supply" is gradually becoming a deep driving force for optimizing the import structure.
Mutual benefit and win-win results promote balance
Facing unprecedented opportunities and complex challenges, my country is implementing multi-dimensional policies and making coordinated progress: on the one hand, it is stabilizing its export fundamentals, on the other hand, it is actively expanding the scale of imports, while continuing to optimize the business environment, systematically promoting the optimization and dynamic balance of trade structure, and moving steadily towards a new international trade pattern with higher quality, stronger resilience, and better efficiency.
Wang Xuekun believes that promoting trade balance requires actively expanding imports on the basis of stabilizing exports. The first is to optimize the import structure, give full play to the advantages of the huge domestic market, focus on expanding the import of energy resources, key parts and components, advanced technology equipment and high-quality consumer goods, and promote the deep integration of import with industrial upgrading and consumption upgrading. The second is to improve the promotion system, give full play to the functions of exhibition platforms such as the China International Import Expo, solidly promote the construction of national import trade promotion innovation demonstration zones, and continue to expand the brand influence of "Export to China". The third is to expand diversified channels, deepen import cooperation with emerging countries, vigorously develop new foreign trade formats, and improve import stability and flexibility. The fourth is to strengthen policy support, optimize the tariff structure, improve the level of import trade facilitation, effectively reduce import costs, and fully stimulate the import potential of business entities.
"It is necessary to implement stable foreign trade policies and promote the diversification of the foreign trade market and the integrated development of domestic and foreign trade." Han Ruidong said that it is necessary to continue to optimize and upgrade the trade of goods, increase the proportion of exports of high value-added and high-tech products, and promote "Made in China" to move up the global value chain. At the same time, we must focus on the needs for industrial upgrading and meeting people's needs for a better life, reasonably adjust import tariff rates, and improve the level of import trade facilitation. Specifically, by revising the catalog of technologies, products and services that are encouraged to be imported, we can expand the import of advanced technology and equipment, high-quality agricultural products, and productive services that are urgently needed domestically, strengthen the effectiveness of the import promotion platform, and promote the continuous upgrading of the import structure to high technology, high quality, green, and service-oriented. (Economic Daily reporter Feng Qiyu Xu Leijie)
