From the macro data point of view, China’s foreign trade in the first quarter of 2021 continued the development trend of the second half of 2020. According to the General Administration of Customs, my country’s exports in the first quarter were 4.6 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 38.7%. As an emerging trade format, cross-border e-commerce has experienced a year-on-year increase of 69.3% in exports, becoming one of the main forces driving steady growth in foreign trade.
However, from a micro level, the current situation of foreign trade companies can be described as half flames and half seawater. Industrial labor shortages, raw material price increases, exchange rate fluctuations, and international logistics disorder have all become major obstacles affecting China’s foreign trade industrial chain. The foreign trade order model of “large volume and low profit” has suffered a huge impact under this round of changes. The phenomenon of unprofitable suspension of production and loss of support is not an isolated case.
How to jump from the bottom of the smile curve to the higher ends of the added value? This is a practical problem faced by many foreign trade companies. Traveling against the current, if you don’t advance, you will retreat. Under the circumstance of the current booming orders, China’s foreign trade industry, which is “globally energy-supplied,” can accumulate enough strength and brand power to counter the future, which may not be too long, for major global manufacturing domestic products. Can the order game after the recovery?
Growth, shock, differentiation, and transformation
“The key to the development of the foreign trade industry in the future is to do a good job of automation and increase the added value.” Based on the judgment of the long-term development trend of domestic foreign trade manufacturing, in early January 2021, Xiang Lehong, the chairman of the company’s main linear drive products, said Analyze to the reporter of “Daily Economic News.”
