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after more than half a year of "downturn", henan's foreign trade has rebounded.

according to henan news, in august, henan's foreign trade import and export value increased by 21.5% year-on-year, maintaining double-digit growth for two consecutive months, and the growth rate of import and export hit a monthly record high this year. for henan, a monthly growth rate of 21.5% is rare.

in the first six months of this year, henan's import and export volume showed negative year-on-year growth in five months, and the growth rate in another month was only 0.7%. in the first half of the year, the export volume of mobile phones, henan's main export product, fell sharply.

due to negative growth in import and export volume in the first half of the year, henan's position as the "no. 1 province in foreign trade in central china" which it had maintained for 12 years was replaced by anhui. at present, anhui's foreign trade scale has successfully advanced to the 9th place in the country.

there are less than four months left until the end of 2024. with the growth rate picking up, can henan's foreign trade further narrow the gap with anhui? in the longer term, can henan return to being the top foreign trade province in central china?

stall

data released by the general administration of customs on september 18 showed that in the first eight months, henan's import and export volume fell by 6.3%, while anhui's increased by 7.5%. the gap between the decline and the increase is widening.

in the first eight months, the total import and export volume of anhui province was 552.96 billion yuan, while that of henan was 460.935 billion yuan, with anhui exceeding henan by more than 92 billion yuan. in terms of ranking, in the first eight months, anhui's foreign trade level ranked 9th in the country, while henan ranked 13th.

compared with 2023, henan has been surpassed by provinces such as anhui, tianjin, liaoning and guangxi.

henan's foreign trade slowed down, and the main reason for the slowdown was exports. in terms of import volume, henan's import volume decreased year-on-year in january and february, but turned to positive growth in march, april and may; but in terms of export volume, after a sharp drop of about 44% in january, it continued to decline from february to may, resulting in a low total import and export volume in the first half of the year.

when talking about henan's foreign trade, we have to mention foxconn. over the years, the two have been deeply intertwined. foxconn landed in zhengzhou in 2010, and henan became the first province in central china in foreign trade in 2012. these two time points are related to each other.

for a long time, the main product of the foxconn park in zhengzhou was mobile phones. in 2011, zhengzhou produced 24.45 million mobile phones. at its peak in 2017, zhengzhou's mobile phone production was close to 300 million units, most of which were produced by foxconn. a large part of these mobile phones were exported overseas. for example, in 2020, the year for which statistics were available, the number of mobile phones exported from zhengzhou accounted for 68% of the number of mobile phones produced.

foxconn's huge export volume has driven up henan's overall exports. according to a news release by the henan provincial government in january 2023, foxconn's import and export volume accounts for about 60% of the province's total import and export volume and 80% of zhengzhou's total import and export volume.

however, during the epidemic, the production of foxconn in zhengzhou was affected, and there was a shortage of staff at one point, which led to a sharp drop in production and affected mobile phone exports. in the first half of this year, henan's mobile phone exports continued to decline.

in the first seven months of this year, henan province exported 18.696 million mobile phones, down 38.5% year on year; the export value of mobile phones was 74.713 billion yuan, down 41.3% year on year, a decrease of 21.8 billion yuan.

mobile phones are not the only factor affecting henan's exports. customs data show that among henan's high-value exports, agricultural products, auto parts, clothing and clothing accessories, textile yarns, fabrics and their products are also declining.

rise

in the first eight months, henan's overall foreign trade level declined year-on-year, but the decline has been gradually narrowing, from 36.5% in january to 6.3% in the first eight months. the trend is the same in exports, with the decline decreasing from 43.9% to 12.3% month by month.

specifically for a single month, foreign trade data has rebounded.

after experiencing a decline in the first half of the year, henan's total import and export volume increased by 14.1% year-on-year in july this year, with exports increasing by 6.1% and imports increasing by 31%; in august, the total import and export volume increased by 21.1% year-on-year, with exports increasing by 17.3% and imports increasing by 26.6%.

with positive growth for two consecutive months and a high growth rate, henan's foreign trade seems to have come out of the trough.

data from zhengzhou customs showed that the rapid growth in exports of automobiles, aluminum, silver and furniture was the main highlight of henan's foreign trade exports in the first eight months, all showing double-digit growth. the total export increase was 10.66 billion yuan, raising the province's foreign trade export growth rate by 3.3 percentage points.

among them, automobile exports were 20.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21%; aluminum exports were 16.43 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 38.8%; silver exports were 7.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.8%; and furniture exports were 6.83 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.4%.

in terms of new foreign trade momentum, in the first eight months, henan province exported 7.03 billion yuan of "new three products" for foreign trade, a year-on-year increase of 12.5%. among them, electric vehicles were exported for 4.65 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 61.6%, accounting for 66.1% of the province's foreign trade "new three products" export value.

the recovery of henan's foreign trade is related to the local industrial structure adjustment, and these adjustments are not just proposed now. as early as 2021, henan proposed the "ten strategies", including the "lane change and leading strategy" - forward-looking layout in future industries, taking the lead in emerging industries, and high-level grafting on traditional industries.

new energy vehicles are one of the key industries in henan's layout. in april 2023, the byd factory in zhengzhou officially went into production. of the 316,000 new energy vehicles produced in zhengzhou in 2023, 200,000 were produced by byd. with the help of byd, zhengzhou entered the top ten cities in new energy vehicle production in less than a year, which also led to a substantial increase in henan's electric vehicle exports.

foxconn has also been included in henan's industrial adjustment. on july 22, 2024, henan province and foxconn signed a strategic cooperation agreement to invest in the construction of a new business headquarters building in zhengzhou, with a total investment of about 1 billion yuan. in january this year, foxconn also established a new energy vehicle industry development company in henan with a registered capital of 500 million yuan, focusing on the new energy vehicle industry. this series of actions was interpreted as foxconn "turning around" and returning to henan.

in august, news such as "foxconn factory in zhengzhou recruits 50,000 workers" and "byd and foxconn are 'snatching people' in zhengzhou" came out one after another. the two manufacturing giants sent a signal of "optimism about henan" to the outside world, adding ballast to henan's foreign trade.

in march this year, henan also issued the "implementation plan for accelerating the "six new" breakthroughs in manufacturing". the "six new" refers to new infrastructure, new technologies, new materials, new equipment, new products, and new business formats, in order to seize the opportunities of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation.

henan plans to increase the proportion of manufacturing value added in gdp and the proportion of strategic emerging industries in industrial value added above designated size to more than 30% by 2025, strengthen 7 advanced manufacturing clusters and 28 key industrial chains, and rank among the top in the country in terms of comprehensive advanced manufacturing strength.

as the industry adjusts, the number of foreign trade entities in henan is also increasing, driving the overall foreign trade recovery. in the first eight months, the number of foreign trade enterprises in henan with import and export performance reached 11,506, an increase of 10% year-on-year, a net increase of 1,043, and the scale continued to grow.

catching up

although henan's foreign trade volume achieved significant growth in july and august, anhui maintained a relatively high growth rate in the first eight months, and there is still a gap of more than 90 billion yuan between the two.

specifically, anhui's foreign trade volume is more than 10 billion yuan higher than henan's every month, with the highest difference reaching 17.34 billion yuan in june. however, henan has also released positive signals, with the monthly difference in july and august being smaller than that in the first half of the year.

anhui used to be chasing henan, but now the roles have been reversed and it is henan that is chasing anhui, with guangxi, liaoning and tianjin separating them.

in fact, henan had already caught up with anhui in 2023. in the middle of last year, anhui's foreign trade volume was 11 billion yuan ahead of henan. by november, anhui was still 2.6 billion yuan ahead. however, henan turned the tide in december and surpassed anhui, maintaining its position as the leader in central china's foreign trade.

the rise of anhui's foreign trade also benefited from local industrial adjustments. anhui's automobile production has soared to the top three in the country.

in the first eight months, anhui's automobile exports (including chassis) amounted to 58.43 billion yuan, up 34.3%, driving the province's exports up by 4.4 percentage points; this included electric vehicle exports worth nearly 8 billion yuan, an increase of 249%.

however, the exports of the other two "new three" products in anhui, lithium batteries and photovoltaics, did not grow, and the export value of photovoltaics in the first eight months fell by 10.7%. the "old three" products continued to maintain anhui's foreign trade base, especially automatic data processing equipment and household appliances, with a total export value of more than 50 billion yuan, and a relatively high growth rate.

in addition, anhui exported 9.51 billion yuan of unwrought copper and copper products in the first eight months, an increase of 64.2%; exported 8.31 billion yuan of agricultural products, an increase of 16%; and exported 8.05 billion yuan of basic organic chemicals, an increase of 14.8%.

since the beginning of this year, anhui has successively issued provincial foreign trade promotion policies such as "several measures for anhui province to accelerate the integrated development of domestic and foreign trade", and further promoted the improvement of anhui's foreign trade level by expanding the export scale of advantageous products, supporting the development of cross-border e-commerce, and cultivating more foreign trade entities.

although anhui's foreign trade has grown rapidly, it still lags far behind sichuan, which ranks eighth in terms of foreign trade volume, and will be difficult to shake in the short term. as for who will take the ninth place, it remains to be seen. in the first eight months, the difference between tianjin and henan in foreign trade volume was only 11.26 billion yuan. if tianjin accelerates its efforts in the next few months, it is possible that it will surpass anhui in the whole year.

for henan, facing a gap of more than 90 billion yuan, it is self-evidently difficult to stage a comeback this year. however, if the time is extended to 2025 or even 2026, the entire foreign trade pattern is still full of variables.

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