Dongguan’s foreign trade is greeted with yet another good news on the morning of Nov. 10, 2020 as the municipal conference for promoting high-quality and stable development of foreign trade issued theOpinions on Facilitating the Role of High-Quality Foreign Trade and Economic Development in Accelerating the Building of a New Development Paradigm with Domestic Circulation Being the Mainstay and the Two Circulations Reinforcing Each Other (hereinafter referred to as the “Opinions”). How has the Opinions been introduced, and what is the significance of this policy? With these questions, the reporter interviewed the Bureau of Commerce of Dongguan City for an interpretation.
According to the introduction, the Opinions contains a total of 30 articles in eight sections. Abbreviated as the “452 Foreign Trade & Economic Revitalization Plan”, it puts forwards three major goals for Dongguan’s foreign trade and economic development in the coming three years: to bring total domestic sale of export products to RMB 500 billion yuan by 2022, to make the Belt and Road region the largest export market for Dongguan, and to increase Dongguan’s total export-import volume in the next three years to over RMB 4 trillion yuan.
Background
Promoting high-quality development of foreign trade and the economy in three years
This year, global trade has been battered by the COVID-19 epidemic, China-US economic and trade frictions, among other factors. As a major traditional economic and trade city, Dongguan was the first to bear the brunt. To foster new opportunities and make new advances, a document drafting team composed of members of related departments of Dongguan City was formed this July, which ultimately formulated these Opinions based on an in-depth investigation and study.
The Opinions set three major goals for promoting high-quality foreign trade and economic development in Dongguan in the coming three years. The first is to free up the “bottlenecks” and bring total domestic sale of export products to RMB 500 billion yuan by 2022; second is to seize the opportunity to make Belt and Road countries the largest export market for Dongguan, taking up more than 28% of its total export and surpassing export to Hong Kong and the USA; third is to guarantee total foreign trade volume, making it clear that foreign trade volume of Dongguan shall add up to RMB 4 trillion yuan in the coming three years.
According to Mr. Cai Kang, director of the Bureau of Commerce of Dongguan City, Dongguan will prioritize six major action plans and take a combination of measures to stabilize the basic foreign trade situation. The six major action plans are Made-in-Dongguan Brand Promotion Plan, Three-Year Action Plan for Domestic Sale of Export Products, Three-Year Plan for Promoting Cross-Border E-Commerce Development, Three-Year Plan for Promoting Innovative Development of the Supply Chain, Three-Year Plan for Promoting Development of the Comprehensive Service System for Foreign Trade, and Three-Year Plan for Introducing and Fostering Foreign Capital.
Key Points
452 Foreign Trade & Economic Revitalization Plan
The Opinions, called the “452 Foreign Trade & Economic Revitalization Plan” for short, consists of 30 articles in 8 sections.
“4” refers to the “four goals”. The Opinions sets four major goals, namely, to improve the trade system characterized by both internal and external circulation, to create a multi-driven trade platform, to build a trade hub allowing for unimpeded global trade, and to establish an innovative system and mechanism aligned with the world. “4” also refers to the four-trillion-yuan accumulative total of foreign trade value to be realized in the next three years.
“5” means “five improvements”, namely, improving the industrial chain, supply chain, trade chain, logistics chain and financial chain to turn Dongguan into a strong regional trade hub featured by a cluster of players, integrated functions and intensive operation. It also refers to the five “trillion-yuan” targets, namely, to cultivate three smart terminal production enterprises with an output value of over RMB 100 billion yuan each, to foster 2-3 traditional robust industry clusters with an output value of over RMB 100 billion yuan each, to strive to build several strategic emerging industrial bases with an output value of over RMB 100 billion yuan each, to introduce and cultivate a batch of supply chain enterprises with an output value of over RMB 100 billion yuan each, and to create a cross-border e-commerce sector with a total export-import volume of over RMB 100 billion yuan.
“2” refers to the “two guarantees” for building a strong trade city: optimizing the supervisory chain and improving the work chain. They include comprehensively implementing reform of the trade system, establishing a joint meeting work mechanism for promoting high-quality foreign trade and economic development, etc.
Further, the Opinions provides specific ways of achieving these goals, by proposing 80 concreate measures designed to improve the industrial chain, strengthen the supply chain, unblock the logistics chain, expand the trade chain, enhance the financial chain, optimize the supervisory chain, and improve the work chain. Among them, 49 are innovative measures, 15 are optimized version of existing measures, and 16 are converted based on policies from the higher authorities. The innovative measures mainly include implementing the multiple-function-in-one-area and multiple-form-in-one-warehouse supervision innovation at Humen Port Comprehensive Bonded Zone, exploring the building of the global economic components supply chain, supporting Dongguan Port to build inland ports, and including high-quality supply chain enterprises into the provincial pilot for innovation of the supply chain financial platform.
