How to stabilize foreign trade？ Transforming products, modes and ideas.
With the full resumption of production of domestic automobile manufacturers, the number of automobile exports is increasing. The picture shows a large number of domestic vehicles assembled at berth 69 of Dongfang Company Wharf in Lianyungang Port, Jiangsu Province, ready for shipment and export. Photo by Wang Chun/Bright Picture
On March 30th, Jerry Environmental Protection Group, located in Yantai, Shandong Province, held an "online inspection meeting". Technicians broadcast the equipment details and functional testing process to Saudi customers through live video to ensure the timely delivery of the project. Photo by Tang Ke/Bright Picture
On April 2, in Anhui Deke Electric Technology Co., Ltd., Hefei City, Anhui Province, workers were working hard to make foreign trade orders. Photo by Liu Xiaohua/Bright picture
[Economic Interface]
At the beginning of March, overseas customers were still urging delivery, and after a week, the order was cancelled. At present, the COVID-19 epidemic is spreading all over the world. Some countries have been hit in the fields of production and consumption, trade activities have decreased, and the downward pressure on the global economy has increased. International organizations and institutions have lowered their global economic and trade expectations. China’s enterprises resumed their work and production, but the outbreak of overseas epidemic caused foreign trade sales to shrink, orders to be cancelled and logistics to be blocked.
In the first two months of this year, the total export value of China’s goods trade was 2.04 trillion yuan, down 15.9% compared with the same period last year. "With the further spread of the international epidemic, the situation of foreign trade import and export may further deteriorate, and it is necessary to make early preparations." Xin Guobin, vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said recently.
How to stabilize foreign trade, ensure enterprises’ employment and maintain the global industrial chain, is it to change products, export to domestic demand, change the foreign trade survival format, seize the opportunity period of overseas e-commerce, or carry out a deeper industry transformation? Foreign trade enterprises are in action.
1. Changing products: Foreign trade enterprises actively seek business opportunities and "outlets"
[case]
From doing foreign trade auto parts business to exporting health products — — Cheng Guosheng is a businessman who is engaged in foreign trade auto parts. Before the Spring Festival, the company received a lot of orders, which were originally intended to be sent out after the Spring Festival, but because of the epidemic, customers had to be informed that the delivery time was extended. Later, the United States, Spain, Germany and other countries and regions broke out, stores closed, and many orders were cancelled, which was greatly affected. By chance, he pushed a batch of yoga mats to American dealers, and they were quickly bought, which opened up the train of thought for Cheng Guosheng.
Going upstream and looking for new business opportunities in a cruel environment is the key to the "phoenix nirvana" of enterprises. At present, the wind outlet is far more than protective equipment such as masks, disinfectant and medical supplies. Sales of all kinds of food, shampoo, toothpaste, soap, shower gel and other necessities are on the rise, and sales of small household appliances such as coffee machines, ironing machines, small ovens and even pajamas are also increasing substantially.
"In the context of the global spread of the epidemic, the service trade and products involving the flow of people and foreign trade enterprises subject to orders and logistics have been greatly impacted. The state has introduced some support measures to stabilize foreign trade. Foreign trade enterprises should make good use of national policies to keep themselves alive, but it is impossible for all enterprises to count on the state. To shrink the goal, hardcore users should maintain good relationships and open up new fields at home and abroad. " Bai Ming, deputy director of the International Market Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, pointed out.
Bai Ming emphasized that the current global supply chain and industrial chain are facing a lockout, and the root cause is the epidemic. However, in the early stage, the supply side of China, as the world’s largest manufacturing country, was broken. At present, China has overcome difficulties and resumed production, but there are problems at both ends of the supply chain. On the one hand, some upstream raw materials cannot be bought; On the other hand, there is a problem with the demand and the order is gone. It is difficult to resume production after returning to work, and enterprises should "guarantee channels outside and ensure production capacity inside". In fact, the "external insurance channel" is to do everything possible to keep the customer relationship, and never disconnect. As long as the channels are maintained, enterprises can temporarily make profits.
From Cheng Guosheng’s case, we can also see that the "external insurance channel" is very important. He originally predicted that the epidemic would last for 3-4 months. In addition to giving customers confidence, he should also do a good job in customer follow-up marketing. Therefore, when new market opportunities appear, it is not enough to just use the original dealers. We must find ways to get through this vacuum period. During his isolation at home, Cheng Guosheng bought a lot of fitness equipment. Seeing that foreign countries were in the outbreak period, he pushed the information of the goods to the dealers. Soon, American manufacturers will take all these goods away.
Not only overseas medical materials urgently needed to fight the epidemic, but also export enterprises such as indoor entertainment construction, maternal and child toys and pet supplies have seen a surge in orders, and some orders have even been placed in June. People who value health will buy indoor sporting goods, while eating out less will increase the demand for kitchen supplies, and school suspension will increase the demand for parent-child interactive entertainment supplies … … Enterprises seize business opportunities and use the original trade channels and resources, which has great potential for demand growth.
China has all the industrial categories in the United Nations industrial classification, and the output of more than 200 products ranks first in the world. The key to the competitiveness of China manufacturing lies in the fact that these industries have great productivity advantages, complete industrial chains, complete supporting facilities and innovative potential. As long as the production capacity is there, China enterprises will have the opportunity to turn over a new leaf.
In order to minimize the impact of the epidemic and stabilize the basic market of foreign trade and foreign investment, the China Municipal Government has launched a set of "combination boxing", and relevant departments have coordinated to solve the problems of epidemic prevention, employment, energy and upstream and downstream support. In terms of alleviating the financial pressure, we will promote the introduction of tax incentives, financial interest subsidies, financing support, rent reduction and other measures, expand the supply of foreign trade credit, promote a reasonable decline in rates, "transfusion" and "stop loss" for enterprises, reduce the burden on enterprises, and alleviate urgent needs. In terms of strengthening enterprise services, increase legal aid and information services, assist in issuing "force majeure facts", and reduce the risk of performance; Urge the countries concerned to lift unnecessary trade restrictions as soon as possible.
Bai Ming believes that "internal production capacity" should not only keep foreign trade channels as much as possible, but also regard the domestic market as the China branch of the global market. In the era of economic globalization, China’s market opening is not only open to foreign enterprises, but also to domestic enterprises. At the same time, it is necessary to speed up the reform of the domestic market and reduce the obstacles for domestic enterprises to develop in China. Enterprises in China should make good use of the China branch in the global market, so that enterprises can stay in the green hills. Although enterprises may not have enough to eat or even eat well, as long as they survive, once the epidemic has passed, they will have the opportunity to resume growth.
2. Transformation mode: New foreign trade formats and new modes release potential and kinetic energy.
[case]
Over the past two months, Lai Yongle, the head of Dalian Zhuzhou International Trade Co., Ltd., a cross-border e-commerce, has been paying attention to the adjustment and changes of trade policies, entry and exit policies, shipping and airline policies of various countries every day. Fortunately, I came to Yongle to prepare as many goods as possible and arranged overseas warehouses in advance. In addition to storing more goods in the warehouse, Lai Yongle is still thinking about long-term planning.
The the State Council executive meeting held on April 7th decided that the 127th Canton Fair would be held online in the middle and late June. Merchants at home and abroad are invited to display their products online, and advanced information technology is used to provide all-weather online promotion, supply and mining docking, online negotiation and other services to create an online foreign trade platform for high-quality featured goods.
For the first time, the oldest trade event in China was held entirely in the form of network, which released a clear signal: at present, the COVID-19 epidemic is spreading all over the world, and the situation is grim. To hedge the impact of the epidemic, we should maximize the benefits of the Internet, so that cloud computing, big data and industrial Internet of Things can better promote the high-quality development of trade.
The the State Council executive meeting also decided to set up 46 new cross-border e-commerce comprehensive experimental zones on the basis of 59 already established ones. Give greater play to the unique advantages of cross-border e-commerce and help foreign trade overcome difficulties with new formats. At the same time, we will promote a series of support policies to promote the development of cross-border e-commerce, study the inclusion of cities where qualified comprehensive test zones are located in the pilot scope of cross-border e-commerce retail import, and support enterprises to jointly build and share overseas warehouses.
Bai Ming analyzed that new foreign trade modes and formats such as "online Canton Fair" and cross-border e-commerce have overcome the problem that customers can’t do business without meeting in the past. With the support of new technology, the demonstration of product performance can also be realized online. Through the online professional demonstration platform, the dilemma of insufficient offline communication caused by the epidemic situation is greatly compensated. E-commerce is different from the transportation of bulk commodities, so it can be assembled and transported, and freight airlines that specialize in serving e-commerce should also keep up.
After this epidemic, the popularity of e-commerce in the world is widely recognized, and foreign trade enterprises can also take this opportunity to transform online.
Li Xinggan, director of the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce, recently pointed out that it is necessary to encourage innovation and development, give play to the role of new trade formats and models such as cross-border e-commerce market procurement in promoting import and export trade, support enterprises to build a number of high-quality overseas warehouses, and improve the construction of China’s foreign trade international marketing network system.
Recently, Guangdong, Zhejiang and other major foreign trade provinces have introduced measures to "promote the steady growth of foreign trade", including increasing support for cross-border e-commerce export logistics and warehousing.
Taking Guangzhou Nansha Free Trade Zone as an example, Nansha Customs has introduced 13 facilitation measures to support enterprises to carry out business. In terms of facilitating customs clearance of cross-border e-commerce, the customs relies on the information system of customs supervision of cross-border e-commerce, and superimposes measures such as "joint guarantee of the same trade", "release tax first, collect payment", "centralized package construction and direct delivery" and "intelligent laboratory release at the bayonet" to promote district circulation and self-transportation of enterprises.
The new mode of foreign trade brings about the change of thinking mode. Compared with offline sales, online sales put forward higher requirements for the team’s operational efficiency, order circulation speed and product update frequency. During the epidemic, many shops used epidemic prevention items as explosions, which led to the sales of other products. At the same time, I built my own cross-border e-commerce team. Due to the small scale of online orders, it will also force the innovation of freight transportation, and the way of freight LCL will become more popular. The epidemic has also made many foreign trade enterprises think more about their operations, such as realizing the importance of arranging overseas warehouses.
3, transformation ideas: relying on stable quality of the brand made in China.
[case]
"Some of my customers are Japanese and some are from Europe. The Japanese customer’s order factory can do it for 6 months, and the European customer’s orders are basically cancelled. Because of insufficient orders, the factory currently works five days a week to ensure basic profits by paying close attention to production efficiency. " Li Yongchun, who owns a medium-sized foreign trade garment processing enterprise, has been engaged in this industry for more than 20 years. Because of excellent product quality and good corporate reputation, his enterprise has always had stable overseas customers. Under the impact of the epidemic, many things have changed.
"Some enterprises around me have been overwhelmed, closed down or temporarily closed down, and some have closed domestic factories and transferred production to Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam. For me, I have to find orders from other domestic companies to maintain the operation of the factory from June to August. At present, I have put on record the production of medical protective clothing and consider going to the mask production line. This year, many companies switched to protective clothing and masks. " Li Yongchun told reporters.
GAP cancelled 30% of summer orders; H&M suspended all new orders from March 11th to 20th; Zara directly canceled the summer order … … Foreign trade processing fields such as shoes, hats and clothing have been greatly affected. With the large-scale order reduction of some brands, many foreign trade enterprises have been unable to survive this "cold winter". According to the enterprise information query platform, from February 1 to April 1, the number of import and export foreign trade enterprises cancelled or revoked nationwide has reached 12396.
"What I am most worried about is not that there are no orders in the short term, but that enterprises will be squeezed out of the global industrial chain after the epidemic. The difficulties during this period also made me realize that I must be an independent brand. Just use this time to adjust and optimize operations, warehousing systems, marketing channels and other aspects. " Li Yongchun said.
This is also the most anxious thing for Bai Ming at the moment. "The temporary lack of orders is not the most terrible thing. Sooner or later, there will be orders, and I am afraid that the customer relationship will be lost."
Liu Yu, the second-level inspector of the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said recently that the Ministry of Commerce will continue to take effective measures to consolidate the traditional advantages of foreign trade, vigorously cultivate new advantages in foreign trade competition with technology, quality, brand and service as the core, cultivate a group of large enterprises with competitive advantages in the world and a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises with vitality, innovation, high degree of specialization and strong cooperation ability, cultivate a group of international marketing networks with strong market penetration, cultivate a group of trade platforms with high international reputation and great influence, and cultivate a group of enterprises with strong cooperation ability.
Bai Ming pointed out that from the development trend, China has more voice in global governance in recent years. By promoting the construction of the Belt and Road, China has promoted the reform of the global governance system. Our enterprises should provide better and competitive products for domestic and international markets.