Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, January 14th Title: Xinhua News Agency Economic Essay: Understand the "new" volume of the report card with more than 43 trillion yuan

Xinhua News Agency reporters Zou Duowei and Hu Linguo

On January 13, the annual report card in my country's foreign trade was released, and the data was eye-catching - According to customs statistics, my country's foreign trade crossed the two trillion-level marks in 2024, with the total annual import and export value reaching 43.85 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5%, the scale hit a new historical high, and the goal of quality improvement and volume stability was successfully achieved.

In recent years, factors such as geopolitical tensions, contraction of external demand, and trade protectionism have brought huge challenges and uncertainties to the economic and trade development of various countries. Against this background, my country's foreign trade has withstood multiple pressures and is hard-won to achieve such achievements.

Where does toughness and motivation come from?

The rising "new" volume is an important support. Compared with the past, in 2024, my country's foreign trade has a more "new" meaning.

From the perspective of products, more and more new products with high-tech attributes are accelerating their "going overseas". From 3D printers and flat panel display modules to electric vehicles and wind turbines, the export growth rate is significantly higher than the overall export growth rate in my country.

From the perspective of business formats, new business formats such as cross-border e-commerce, bonded maintenance, and border trade are booming. Among them, the import and export of new cross-border e-commerce formats reached 2.63 trillion yuan throughout the year, an increase of 1 trillion yuan compared with 2020, and the growth rate achieved double-digit growth.

From the market perspective, while maintaining growth in traditional markets such as Europe and the United States, my country strives to expand its "circle of friends": it has been the largest trading partners with ASEAN for five consecutive years, and its import and export to countries jointly built the "Belt and Road" accounted for more than half for the first time, and its import and export to Latin America, Africa, Central Asia and Central and Eastern Europe contributed nearly 60% to my country's foreign trade growth.

Walking against the current, I support myself with my strength, and retreat with a thousand times.

"If you don't go out, you'll be eliminated" "It's better to go out than to face a wall at home"... At the beginning of the new year, many foreign traders started the "flying people in the air" model early and went overseas to participate in exhibitions and negotiate with customers. Their enthusiasm for daring to make a living is a vivid footnote to China's foreign trade facing difficulties.

At the same time, we must also see that the current international pattern is accelerating changes, unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise, trade barriers are increasing, and the development environment of foreign trade is still not optimistic. Especially in 2025, the external environment will become more complex and changeable, and my country's foreign trade will face severe challenges in stabilizing growth.

For China's foreign trade, which grew up from the market storm, the international trade situation is changing, and challenges and opportunities coexist. A new starting point, how to use the "new" achievements and the accumulated "new" forces to stimulate more new growth in foreign trade development?

The Central Economic Work Conference held in December last year listed "stabilizing foreign trade" as a key task this year. In recent years, policy measures to promote the development of cross-border e-commerce, expand the export of specialty agricultural products and other commodities, optimize customs clearance operation processes, etc., have been successively introduced and implemented, and a new synergy to promote the development of foreign trade is being formed.

The Spring Festival is approaching, and many companies are still "opening their energy". In order to provide tailor-made services to overseas customers, in addition to the conventional summer clothes and winter clothes and summer clothes, a clothing company in Zhejiang is busy transforming and upgrading the production line toward flexible customization.

The company's head told reporters that in the face of the transfer of the industrial chain of traditional manufacturing, it is necessary to improve supply capacity in accelerating innovation and firmly grasp the "bull's nose" of core competitiveness.

Facts have proved that the more intense the competition, the more it will force reform and innovation. Nowadays, insisting on improving competitiveness through industrial upgrading, opening up new space with diversified markets, and shaping new momentum with high-level opening up is becoming an important focus of thousands of foreign trade business entities.

Analysis of the development history of my country's foreign trade, we must also realize that only by moving towards "newness" can we better seek progress while maintaining stability. We must improve quality through innovation, solve the bottlenecks, difficulties and pain points in development, and open up new world for foreign trade development.

2025 has opened a new chapter. In factories and parks, the momentum of foreign trade enterprises striving for a "good start" has emerged. The picture with the word "加" contains the vigorous pulse of economic development and the beautiful expectations for the future. With the continuous improvement of "new" volumes to accumulate strong momentum, the foundation for "stability" of foreign trade will be more solid, and the changes in "good" will be more prominent, and the supporting role for high-quality economic development will be more powerful.