On April 16th, the "report card" for Guangdong's imports and exports in the first quarter of 2024 was released. According to statistics from the Guangdong Sub-administration of the General Administration of Customs, Guangdong's foreign trade volume totaled 2.04 trillion yuan in the first quarter, a 12% increase. This marks a historic high for the same period and Guangdong maintained its position as China's top province for foreign trade.
Both exports and imports in Guangdong saw double-digit growth, with an overall growth rate exceeding two digits, marking the best performance over the past 11 quarters. Regarding the main players in foreign trade, the number of enterprises with considerable foreign trade volume reached 101,000, with private enterprises, especially small and medium-sized ones, contributing 1.28 trillion yuan to imports and exports. In terms of trading partners, Guangdong's trade with major partners continued to grow, with ASEAN remaining its largest trading partner. These data fully demonstrate the strong momentum and comprehensive competitiveness of Guangdong's foreign trade.
In the current environment of profound international changes and numerous challenges hampering global economic development, how has Guangdong's foreign trade remained so stable?
On the one hand, the large number of private enterprises has supported the "foundation" of Guangdong's foreign trade. Data shows that in 2023, the number of enterprises engaged in import and export business in Guangdong exceeded 130,000 for the first time, with private enterprises accounting for over 80%. In the first quarter of 2024, imports and exports by private enterprises, mainly small and medium-sized ones, reached 1.28 trillion yuan, a 19.2% increase, accounting for 62.9% of Guangdong's total foreign trade value, up 3.8 percentage points from the same period last year. In the face of complex and changing foreign trade environments, private enterprises have adjusted their strategic directions in a timely manner, promoting continuous optimization of the foreign trade structure. Over the past year, exports of Guangdong's "new three," represented by lithium-ion batteries, solar cells, and electric passenger cars, collectively increased by 33.7%.
On the other hand, the continuous improvement of the industrial chain and supply chain has further strengthened the advantages of Guangdong's foreign trade. In recent years, intermediate goods, which account for more than half of Guangdong's overall foreign trade, have grown rapidly in trade value, reaching 1.12 trillion yuan in imports and exports in the first quarter of this year. It drove overall imports and exports in Guangdong to increase by 8.8 percentage points. While strongly supporting the recovery and improvement of foreign trade, it has also accelerated the integration of Guangdong with related countries and regions in the industrial chain and supply chain.
Guangdong's foreign trade got off to a strong start in the first quarter, with promising momentum. Despite the challenges faced by Guangdong's high-quality development of foreign trade, with favorable factors such as increasing external demand and sustained improvement in the economic fundamentals of China, there is every reason to expect that events like the Canton Fair and "Guangdong Trade Global" will continue to generate new orders, bolstering enterprise confidence and providing solid support for the development of Guangdong's foreign trade in 2024.
Source | Yangcheng Evening News
