The standing committee of the political bureau of the central committee of the communist party of China (CPC) on February 12 stressed the need to resolutely win the people’s war, general war and resistance war on epidemic prevention and control, strive to minimize the impact of the outbreak of the new coronavirus, maintain stable economic operation and social harmony and stability, and achieve this year’s economic and social development goals and tasks. The meeting of the standing committee of the political bureau of the CPC central committee provided a roadmap on how to ensure the smooth passage of the outbreak test in foreign trade while winning the outbreak prevention and control war — supporting foreign trade enterprises to speed up the resumption of production, increasing support for trade financing, and giving full play to the role of export credit insurance. We should take an active part in international coordination and cooperation to create a favorable international environment for the development of foreign trade.
The key to ensuring the achievement of the annual target of foreign trade this year is to support foreign trade enterprises to resume production as soon as possible while actively fighting against the epidemic, and to help foreign trade enterprises get rid of the double pressure of the Spring Festival holiday and the impact of the epidemic by returning to work in batches and gradually operate smoothly. The department of commerce of zhejiang province issued the list of the first batch of provincial key foreign trade enterprises returning to work and the priority guarantee, giving priority to promoting the resumption of work and production of 54 foreign trade enterprises. Shandong province issued the “urgent notice on doing a good job in the resumption of foreign trade and foreign-funded enterprises”, and formulated 19 measures to accelerate the resumption of foreign trade enterprises to promote foreign investment; Guangdong province has issued the “20 articles on resuming industry and production” to support enterprises to resume production and production from five aspects, namely, guaranteeing enterprises to resume production and production, reducing labor costs, reducing enterprises’ operating burden, increasing financial support, and optimizing government services. While stepping up production, foreign trade enterprises that gradually return to work must, according to the characteristics of production and operation, do a good job in the prevention and control of epidemic diseases such as detection and screening before and during the resumption of work and production, commuting security, and individual protection.
As many foreign trade enterprises begin to resume production, the focus of work should be on accelerating the coordinated operation of the whole industrial chain. The production of any enterprise cannot be separated from the cooperation of upstream and downstream, especially for foreign trade enterprises. In addition to timely dredged upstream and downstream enterprises to solve the problems of machine, labor, capital shortage and other problems, pay attention to the raw materials, important parts and other stable supply guarantee problems, at the same time, the logistics, storage and transportation convenience is also the foreign trade enterprises can successfully complete the order and delivery of the important link.
We will increase support for trade financing and give full play to the role of export credit insurance. At present, many places have introduced financing support policies for different types of enterprises and issued funds to enterprises in the shortest time. To increase trade financing support, we should not only solve the urgent problems, but also gradually form a stable policy mechanism for financing small and medium-sized private foreign trade enterprises in the course of coping with the epidemic, and further reduce the short-term export credit insurance rate. Export financing for complete sets of large equipment shall be guaranteed, and foreign trade enterprises shall be vigorously supported to obtain financing on the premise of controllable risks. We will guide financial institutions to increase their support for small and micro enterprises through policies such as differentiated reserve requirements, interest rates, refinancing, and rediscount. Encourage and support financial institutions to make loans to foreign trade enterprises that have orders and are profitable. We should strengthen bank-to-trade cooperation, encourage and support financial institutions to further expand the scope of financing for export credit insurance policies and pledge financing for export tax rebate accounts, so as to break through the blockage at the source and effectively address the lack of resilience in the development of foreign trade enterprises due to financing difficulties and high prices.
We should take an active part in international coordination and cooperation to create a favorable international environment for the development of foreign trade. Foreign trade is inseparable from the international market. Therefore, to do a good job in the prevention and control of the epidemic and achieve the key results of the prevention and control work as soon as possible is to further obtain international recognition, and the importance of gradually reducing foreign restrictions on flights and personnel exchanges is highlighted. At the critical stage when China’s epidemic prevention and control work was at its most intense, a number of foreign-funded enterprises in China actively arranged production deployment, and further strengthened China’s confidence that China would win the battle of epidemic prevention and control and prevention by taking concrete actions to resume production. While recognizing the temporary impact of the outbreak on China’s economy, many foreign investment institutions are still optimistic about the continued positive trend of China’s economy in the medium and long term, which has provided a new “bright color” for the recovery and development of foreign trade this year.
Making overall plans to prevent and control the epidemic and promote economic and social development is both a major war and a major test. After the meeting of the standing committee of the political bureau of the CPC central committee has made a plan for stabilizing foreign trade, government departments at all levels, from the central to the local level, should carry out the plan one by one. The ministry of commerce proposed to “accelerate research on a number of practical and effective policies and measures, promote the solution of enterprises’ practical difficulties, spare no effort to promote stability and stability at the same time” and do a good job in the “6+1” key work. These targeted policies are expected to bring tangible benefits to millions of foreign trade enterprises as soon as possible, so as to minimize the impact of the epidemic on foreign trade production and development, and inject more impetus into efforts to achieve the annual development goals and tasks of foreign trade.