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in the 75 years since the founding of the people's republic of china, china's foreign trade has composed a splendid movement, from the red flag that rolled over the red flag and the resumption of customs rights to the number of "green" sentiments. from breaking through blockades and exchanging what is needed, to tens of thousands of rivals vying for power to strengthen the country through trade, china foreign trade demonstrates continuous practice. in 1950, china's total import and export of goods was only us$1.13 billion. in 2023, china's total import and export of goods has ranked first in the world for seven consecutive years, reaching us$5.94 trillion.

over the past 75 years, china's foreign trade has experienced a difficult starting stage in the early days of the founding of the people's republic of china, a stage of rapid growth after reform and opening up, and a stage of transformation and development in the post-financial crisis era. by forging ahead and developing by leaps and bounds, china has become a leader in the world's trade in goods. the largest country in scale.

the 75 years of ups and downs contain the spring breeze of reform and opening up - from 1979 to 2012, china's total import and export of goods increased by 186.4 times, with an average annual growth rate of 16.6%, and the scale has steadily expanded; the trade structure has accumulated iterative advancements. momentum - especially since the 18th national congress of the communist party of china, the high-quality development of foreign trade has made great strides. from 2013 to 2023, china's total import and export of goods grew at an average annual rate of 4%, a growth rate that was 1.6 percentage points higher than the average global trade in goods during the same period. in 2023, china's "three new" products will export a total of 1.06 trillion yuan, an increase of nearly 30%; cross-border e-commerce imports and exports will increase by 15.6%, of which exports will increase by 19.6%; new entities are bursting with vitality, and foreign trade operations with import and export performance the number of entities exceeded 600,000 for the first time; the international export market share increased from 10.4% in 2012 to 14.2%. over the past 75 years, china's trade in services has experienced a process of starting from scratch, expanding the scale of import and export, and continuously improving the quality of development, providing strong momentum for the development of global trade in services...

countless data are the volume of history presented by china’s foreign trade, and they are also the volume of the times that generations of chinese foreign trade people continue to write.

open a new chapter and embark on a new journey. china has played a glorious role in the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation by virtue of its comprehensive strength, including foreign trade. china's foreign trade has also become an important driving force in driving the global trade giant with stronger international competitiveness and a stronger foundation for long-term development. .

exploring paths, striving for self-improvement

at the beginning of the founding of new china, western countries imposed a military and economic blockade on china. new china's foreign trade had a difficult start and then made great progress.

on the basis of single product economy and planned economic system, china has established a highly centralized foreign trade planning management system with unified state management and state-owned foreign trade enterprises as the main operating entities. while working hard to break the "blockade and embargo" of western countries, china has actively carried out international people-to-people exchanges and expanded trade with western developed and developing countries.

from 1950 to 1978, china's total import and export of goods increased from us$1.135 billion to us$20.638 billion, an increase of 17.2 times. among them, exports increased from us$552 million to us$9.745 billion, an increase of 16.7 times; imports increased from us$583 million to us$10.893 billion, an increase of 17.7 times. in 1956, china experienced a trade surplus for the first time, reversing its long-term trade deficit situation. however, during this period, china's economy was generally in a relatively closed state, and trade in goods was mainly carried out under the centralized arrangements of the state in accordance with plan requirements, and imports and exports always hovered at a low level.

with the spring breeze of reform and opening up in 1978, the foreign trade monopoly was broken. china continues to increase its efforts to open up and actively build an independent foreign trade management system and a free competition system that is in line with the development of globalization and the socialist market economic system. manufacturing enterprises, foreign-invested enterprises and various emerging enterprises continue to emerge, forming a foreign trade pattern in which "a hundred flowers bloom". relying on its own factor endowment advantages, chinese foreign trade enterprises have actively integrated into the global industrial division of labor system and value chain system, vigorously developed processing trade, and the scale of foreign trade has grown rapidly.

from 1978 to 2018, china's import and export of goods increased nearly 200 times, with an average annual growth rate of 14.5%. in the first decade after reform and opening up, china's cumulative import and export volume reached us$599.8 billion, more than four times the cumulative import and export volume in the 28 years from 1950 to 1977, with an average annual growth rate of 17.4%. in 1994, 1997 and 2000, china's import and export scale exceeded us$200 billion, us$300 billion and us$400 billion respectively.

since joining the world trade organization (wto), the huge potential of china's foreign trade has been unleashed. in 2004, china's total import and export of goods exceeded us$1 trillion for the first time. in 2009, china's export volume reached us$1.20161 billion, making it the world's largest exporting country. in 2013, china's total import and export of goods exceeded the 4 trillion u.s. dollar mark, reaching 4.16 trillion u.s. dollars, surpassing the united states for the first time to become the world's largest country in goods trade. among them, the export volume was 2.21 trillion u.s. dollars and the import volume was 1.95 trillion u.s. dollars. this is the first time in more than 100 years that a developing country has become the world's trade champion in goods. it is also a historic achievement in china's foreign trade development and an important milestone in the development of china's open economy.

during this period, china's key policies and measures in the field of foreign trade not only effectively responded to the challenges faced by china's accession to the wto, promoted opening up and economic growth, and enhanced overall national strength, but also played an important supporting role in responding to the international financial crisis, providing support for the rmb "going out" has laid a solid foundation. these measures include: on january 1, 2004, china fully implemented a new export tax rebate mechanism and made structural adjustments to the export tax rebate rate; on july 1 of the same year, the new version of the foreign trade law of the people's republic of china was adopted and implemented, with significant content increased, involving foreign trade operating rights, trade investigations, trade remedies, intellectual property rights, foreign trade order, foreign trade penalties and other aspects; on july 21, 2005, the rmb exchange rate reform was launched to improve the rmb exchange rate formation mechanism. instead of focusing on a single u.s. dollar, we will implement a managed floating exchange rate system based on market supply and demand and adjusted with reference to a basket of currencies.

forge ahead and go far together

as china forges ahead, its road to become a major trading nation becomes more and more stable and broad.

since the 18th national congress of the communist party of china, the party central committee has established a new development concept, actively built a higher-level open economic system through a series of proactive explorations and actions, implemented a more proactive opening-up strategy, accelerated the cultivation of new advantages in foreign trade competition, and become a major trading country. the position is more stable. the report of the 19th national congress of the communist party of china made a major judgment that "socialism with chinese characteristics has entered a new era" and deployed the important task of "accelerating the construction of a strong trading country". as a result, china's construction of a trade power has entered an accelerated process.

at this stage, china has successively issued a number of policy documents to support the development of foreign trade, focusing on deepening the supply-side structural reform in the field of foreign trade, solidly advancing the "five optimizations" and "three constructions", and actively cultivating new formats and models of foreign trade. promote the innovative development of processing trade, improve the level of trade facilitation, and promote china's transformation from a large trading country to a powerful trading country. the reform of foreign trade systems and mechanisms has been advanced in depth, and innovative developments have been continuously achieved in guidance, supervision, service and other mechanisms.

on november 29, 2019, the "guiding opinions on promoting high-quality development of trade" is one of them. with a total of 34 measures in nine major aspects, the opinions systematically propose the establishment of indicators, policies, statistics, and performance evaluation systems for high-quality trade development. at the end of that year, 13 departments including the ministry of commerce jointly issued a document to adjust and expand the list of cross-border e-commerce retail imported goods. the implementation of the "list of cross-border e-commerce retail imported goods (2019 edition)" not only enriches the shopping options of domestic residents, but also optimizes some existing goods, which is of great significance to promoting the healthy development of cross-border e-commerce retail imports and boosting new momentum for foreign trade. important meaning.

from 2013 to 2023, china's total import and export of goods grew at an average annual rate of 4.0%, which was 1.6 percentage points faster than the average global trade in goods during the same period. the international market share of total import and export of goods has increased from less than 1% in 1978 to 12.4% in 2023, ranking first in the world's largest trade in goods for seven consecutive years.

among them, china's total import and export of goods exceeded 30 trillion yuan in 2018, and will exceed 40 trillion yuan in 2022. this year, the first china international import expo was successfully held in shanghai. this pioneering work in the history of international trade shows the world china’s determination and confidence in expanding its opening-up. china has taken the initiative to build a large platform for global cooperation and trade development, and proactively opened its domestic market to the world. this not only promotes the balanced and strong development of china’s trade, but also provides opportunities for global trade. growth provides new impetus.

at the same time, as a major foreign trade country, china is playing an increasingly important role in international economic and trade relations and the international community, and its role as a major country has become increasingly prominent - firmly supporting the multilateral trading system and economic globalization, and fully integrating with a more open attitude. in the world economic system, china's ultra-large-scale market is open to the outside world with sincerity. as a major trading country, it actively participates in building a new international trade rule system and leads the international trade system to develop more soundly.

today, china has more than 230 economic and trade partners and is the main trading partner of more than 140 countries and regions around the world. its trade relations with emerging markets are even closer. the high-standard free trade zone network such as the regional comprehensive economic partnership (rcep) continues to expand. the number of free trade partners has increased to 29, and trade volume with free trade partners accounts for more than 1/3 of total foreign trade. these have provided sufficient confidence for china’s foreign trade to continue to “grow steadily”.

through in-depth participation in wto reform, china has repeatedly proposed china's plans, promoted the achievement of a number of economic and trade results under the group of twenty (g20), asia-pacific economic cooperation (apec), brics, sco and other mechanisms, and jointly released them with many countries the "international economic and trade cooperation framework initiative for digital economy and green development" actively promotes joining the "comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-pacific partnership" (cptpp) and the "digital economy partnership agreement" (depa), and has gained more cooperation in the same direction. trading partners, their voice and influence in the field of international economic and trade rules continue to increase.

"soft and hard" with sufficient gold content

as an important component of the “soft power” of international trade, the role of trade in services cannot be underestimated. statistics show that china's total service import and export volume has increased from us$4.69 billion in 1982 to us$933.1 billion in 2023, with an average annual growth rate of 13.8%, and its global ranking has increased from 34th to 4th.

before reform and opening up, china's trade in services was limited to a small amount of foreign technical assistance and tourism services to china. after the reform and opening up, china has continuously consolidated the foundation of the service industry, steadily promoted the opening up of the service sector, and maintained a good development momentum in service trade. since the 18th national congress of the communist party of china, china has actively carried out comprehensive pilot projects to expand the opening up of the service industry, comprehensively deepened the pilot projects for innovative development of trade in services, built an international exchange platform for trade in services through the international fair for trade in services, and strived to promote high-quality development of trade in services. the scale of trade in services has continued to grow. expand.

the development speed of china's trade in services is faster than the global level, and it has also provided strong momentum for the development of global trade in services. from 1983 to 2023, the average annual growth rate of china's total services import and export was 6.5 percentage points higher than the global average growth rate, and its proportion in total global services trade increased steadily. in 2014, china's total services import and export accounted for 6.3% of the total global services trade, up from 0.6% in 1982, and its ranking in global services trade jumped from 34th in 1982 to 2nd, maintaining its global service rankings for 9 consecutive years. the status of the second largest trading country; ranking 4th in the world in 2023.

china's trade in services not only continues to expand in scale and optimize and upgrade its structure, but also continues to move towards the high end of the value chain. in the 1980s, the average share of traditional services such as transportation in china's total import and export of services exceeded 80%. this proportion has gradually declined since then, but still remains above 50%. today, the proportion of transportation services in the total import and export of services has dropped from 51.6% in 1982 to 27.7% in 2023, and the proportion of travel services has increased from 19.4% in 1982 to 22.6% in 2023, becoming a traditional chinese two pillar areas of service trade.

what is even more gratifying is that with the continuous expansion of the scope of opening up of china's service industry and the continuous deepening of international cooperation in the service field, knowledge-intensive service trade such as finance, insurance, telecommunications, culture and education, and management consulting have developed rapidly. the proportion of total exports is on the rise. in recent years, technologies such as big data, cloud computing, the internet of things, and artificial intelligence have accelerated innovation, and the digital transformation of service trade has accelerated, further expanding the development space for knowledge-intensive service trade.

from 1982 to 2023, china's import and export volume of knowledge-intensive services increased from us$1.01 billion to us$38.5 billion, with an average annual growth rate of 15.6%, which is 2.7 percentage points faster than traditional service trade. in the 1980s and 1990s, the proportion of knowledge-intensive service trade accounted for an average of 24.1%. from 2000 to 2019, the average proportion increased to 32.5%, and from 2020 to 2023, it has increased to 42.9%.

the achievement of these achievements is inseparable from the national level's focus on the development of service trade in recent years, as well as the ministry of commerce's regard of service trade as an important part of a strong trading nation, vigorously promoting the high-quality development of service trade, and launching a series of innovative measures. by improving systems and mechanisms, building open platforms, selecting innovative development pilots for trade in services and promoting more than 150 pilot experiences and cases across the country, selecting 13 national cultural export bases and two batches of 31 traditional chinese medicine service export bases, etc., high-quality trade in services has been achieved development and international cooperation mechanisms are constantly improving.

in september 2024, the "opinions on promoting the high-quality development of service trade with a high level of openness" was released. as an important policy document issued by the state council in the field of foreign trade after the third plenary session of the 20th central committee of the communist party of china, the opinions make a comprehensive and systematic arrangement for the high-quality development of service trade under the new situation.

china's foreign trade achievements have attracted worldwide attention and have made great contributions to the development of the national economy and society and the improvement of its international status. after 75 years of hard work and hard work, china's concept of opening up has become increasingly firm, its integration into the world economic system has become increasingly profound, and china's ambitious goal of developing a high-quality foreign trade trade power has become clearer and faster. the more stable!

■our reporter liu xin