Mei Xinyu, Ministry of Commerce: Prospects and Strategies for Trade and Investment in the “Belt and Road”

On the morning of September 29th, the “2017 China Apparel Hangzhou Summit” ushered in the theme forum of “New Vitality: Trade and Investment and Capacity Cooperation”, focusing on the cooperation opportunities, policies, going global, and ecological strategy of the “One Belt, One Road” for the apparel fashion industry. Exchanges in overseas investment and other aspects.

From September 28th to 29th, the “2017 China Fashion Hangzhou Summit” was held in Hangzhou Yishang Town. After the speech on September 28th with the theme of “Belt and Road: Vision and Action”, the “2017 China Garment Hangzhou Summit” on the morning of September 29 ushered in the theme forum of “New Vitality: Trade and Investment and Capacity Cooperation”. Focusing on the “One Belt, One Road” to exchange opportunities, policies, going global, ecological strategy and overseas investment in the fashion industry.

Mei Xinyu, a researcher at the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce

Mei Xinyu, a researcher at the International Trade and Economic Cooperation Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, gave a speech on the theme of “One Belt, One Road” trade investment prospects and strategies. The following is the speech:

Hello everyone, first of all, thank the organizers for providing this opportunity to communicate with you. The first time I had a deep exchange with our textile and apparel industry was the special dispute between Chinese textiles and the United States and Europe 12 years ago. I have a deep understanding of the problems and prospects of our textile and garment industry.

Twelve years have passed, and there has been a lot of change in the situation faced by our Chinese textile and garment enterprises. On the one hand, our textile and garment industry accounts for nearly 40% of the international market. The peak, on the other hand, the cost has risen and the level of macroeconomic development of the whole country has entered a new stage, which has enabled us to find a new crossroads in the textile and garment enterprise industry. Where is the place here? I hope that we can think that our observations and research can help our friends in the industry. We also hope that our observation and thinking research can help our friends of our trading partners. I hope that we can carry out more extensive and in-depth cooperation. In this current uncertain world economic environment, we will jointly enlarge the cakes of this market and industry.

The theme I am talking about today is the global positioning of China's economy and the “One Belt, One Road” trade and investment. What I want to talk about is mainly these three aspects. First, I hope that the whole world of the whole world will talk about the world economy. The cyclical changes and the development of China's economy in the global positioning, the second is the world significance of China's foreign investment, and the third is how China's trading partners can seize the opportunities of China's trade and investment growth?

First of all, let's talk about the long-term changes in the world economy and the development of the global positioning of China's economy. Its main characteristics are the first one. From the long-term perspective, the entire world economy is currently in a period of low growth for a long time. Because of this, In the past two years, the whole international economics industry has popularized two vocabulary words, one is called stagflation, and the other is called long-term stagnation. The reason is that it is determined by various factors such as technological innovation from the perspective of long-term economic cycle. At this stage, it is a relatively low growth period in the long-term cycle of the world economy, and it will continue for some time, for a foreseeable future, like the 1990s to the early subprime mortgage crisis of the century. The 20-year period of high growth is unlikely to reappear in the foreseeable future.

Such a long-term change in the world economy has entered a period of low growth for a long period of time, which means that the competition for competition for the market and for investment has a fundamental lack of intensification. The second aspect, let's take a look at the future, which can be better explained. We can take a look at this data. From the 1990s to the first 10 years of this century, global economic trade is in a period of high growth. The first ten years ago was a period of strong global trade growth. In 2005-2015, global trade in goods and commercial services doubled, but trade growth began in 2012 and began to decline in 2015. In the 80 years of the annual growth of world trade in goods by 2015, we can see that the average annual growth rate of global trade volume during the period from 13 to 15 years is an increase, with an average annual commission of 3.6%, compared with 01 years. -05 The average annual growth rate of global trade volume is 16%, and the average annual growth rate in 2006-10 is 9.0%. In this case, let's examine the global positioning of China's economy, that is, China's economy in the global economic system. What changes are taking place in its location?

I summed up these characteristics. The share of the first Chinese economy in its global economy is returning to the historical norm. Second China has moved from an agricultural country to a world manufacturing center, and will remain a world industrial manufacturing center for a long time in the foreseeable future. The third China has already taken the status of a major importing country from the first exporting country. In the foreseeable future, China’s first exporting country and the number one importing country will remain in the long term. The fourth is the center of China's global economic positioning that has evolved from a cargo exporting country center to a continuous commercial capital output. So what are the specific characteristics of these four characteristics? Let's take a closer look.

First, let's take a look at the situation in which China's economic share returns to the historical normal. In history, the Chinese economy has occupied a fairly high share in the world economy for a long time. This long-term is not a concept of decades, but hundreds of years and two thousand years. This concept, so that today's econometric economists calculate the econometric history of China at the peak of China accounted for more than 1/3 of the world's economic share, or even more than half of the share, then in the late Qing before the Opium War Since then, the share of the Chinese economy in the global economic system has been quite low, despite the arduous industrialization of our first 30 years after the founding of New China, but at the beginning of the reform and opening up of the Chinese economy. The share of the global economy is still very low. At the beginning of China's reform and opening up in 1980, the current GDP of China was US$305.346 billion and the per capita GDP was US$309.35. The actual GDP calculated by purchasing rate was 305.945 billion US dollars, accounting for 2.34% of the world's real GDP. Compared with the year when China’s GDP was calculated at the current US dollar price, the US’s GDP was nine times that of China’s GDP. In 1991, due to exchange rate changes, China’s current GDP was US$415.6 billion, the United States was US$617.41 billion, and the United States was China’s 14.86 times. According to purchasing power evaluation, it was the actual GDP of China’s GDP of US$126.3 billion. The United States is 617.41 billion US dollars, 4.8 times that of China, but by 2016, China's current GDP is 1,113.16 million US dollars, the United States is 1,856.9 billion US dollars, and the United States is only 1.63 times that of China. This 1.63 times is more than 9 times that of 80 years. It has changed a lot from it, and not only that, if it is measured by the actual GDP calculated by the average purchase price, then China’s real GDP in 2015 has already surpassed that of the United States. In 2016, China’s real GDP accounted for the world. The actual GDP is 17.86%, and the United States is only 87% of China. In the foreseeable future, China’s real GDP in the world’s real GDP is still eager to further increase, so the 20% mark is not out of reach. .

Then let’s take a look at China’s position in the world’s manufacturing industry. China is already the world’s number one manufacturing country and the only country in the world with all the industrial categories of the United Nations industry classification. This is the whole of Europe, the United States, North America and Japan. It can't be done, and China's manufacturing industry is highly diversified, not only the travel products of the traditional labor force, but also the equipment manufacturing industry. In 2013, China's manufacturing industry has already occupied the world. One-third of this ratio is equal to two and a half times the second in the world. Now, after China’s labor, land and other factors have gradually lost their cost advantages, what is China’s new competitive advantage? Including innovation, the big country effect is negative for China's macroeconomic stability advantage, human capital, infrastructure, public services, etc. In this regard, I would like to explain the big country effect is negative for China's macroeconomic stability, because China's external market and economy are unlikely to avoid volatility. In terms of regulating and responding to the impact of economic fluctuations, a big country has an inherent advantage over a small country. We see that when the international financial market fluctuated in the 1960s, we saw In a highly developed country like the Netherlands, its central bank exhausted all of its treasury bills and other financial instruments for intervention in two or three hours when it was intervened by the open market, but when did we see it? The Fed’s open market intervention has done its best? Never before, China does not have such a situation. This is one aspect of China's unparalleled macroeconomic stability advantage given by the big power effect. There are still many other aspects.

The third point is that China is a large country with a large population and unbalanced internal development. This determines the composition of China's manufacturing industry that will maintain a high degree of correspondence for a long time. No matter how industrial upgrading is, it is impossible to engage in so-called high-end industries like small countries. At this point, I hope that our company, our industry, our central and local government departments, and our advocacy industry upgrades should not forget to only behold the so-called high-end industries and forget the so-called low-end industries. Our chip has made a major breakthrough, but we must know that we can't eat chips and wear chips, but we can't live without clothes, shoes and hats every day. In the international trading system, China will have the dual status of a long-term arduous first exporting power and one of the best importing countries. In the long run, the industrial base and the national savings investment model determine that China will maintain its position as a major exporter and trade surplus for a long time. It has repeatedly experienced monthly trade deficits, and has attracted attention again and again in the international economic community, but in the foreseeable future, China is unlikely to have an annual trade deficit for a long time. Why? Since the trade balance is, in the final analysis, it is a national national outbound, it must use the method of trade censorship... to export its national savings to foreign countries. If a country’s national savings are lower than its investment for a long time, then This gap needs to be imported from abroad through a trade deficit. Chinese nationals have a strong and relatively high image of national savings. So, this whole East Asia has no such high tendency among people in other countries and regions in the world economic system. It is this point that determines that East Asia, including China, will remain the center of the international trade system for the foreseeable future and cannot be changed. On the basis of China's imports, China's imports have achieved sustained and rapid growth in the long run. It will maintain a high growth rate and huge scale in the foreseeable future. In 1995, China's imports of primary products reached US$24.4 billion, surpassing exports for the first time. The amount of 21.5 billion sisters is precisely the change that marks the rapid growth of China's imports. The world's first 10 years of rapid growth, the average annual growth rate of the first 10 years of this century is equivalent to twice the annual growth rate of global import trade, in the foreseeable future. During this period of time, it is expected that the average growth rate of China’s imports will still be higher than the average growth rate of global import trade. In response to this trend, the Chinese government is still expanding its imports and will promote trade more than trade barriers. Facilitation, in this case, our Chinese economy will have this dual trend coexisting in trade. On the one hand, the import substitution of our high-tech products, and the other slowdown is the dual trend of our raw materials personnel being replaced by imports. . At the same time, in this case our imported goods, including the composition of goods and services, are experiencing such an evolutionary trend. The first part of our traditional labor-intensive support imports may see a large increase. If the import growth of China in the first 10 years of this century is mainly concentrated in the high growth of imports of raw materials, energy and other primary products, so much At the beginning of the century, the bull market is largely a Chinese market, so a large part of the growth of China’s import of goods in the future will come from the growth of imports of some traditional labor-intensive support. We need to pay attention to this. This is exactly what this generation has given us an opportunity for emerging market trading partners to grow and explore.

The second is that in addition to productive services, consumer services are rapidly growing as growth engines for China's imports, typically such as travel services. On the 1982 China Balance of Payments, China's tourism industry has long been our service trade. The largest surplus account accounted for 83% of the non-trade project surplus in the 82-year China Balance of Payments, but fulfilled China's largest service trade deficit project in 2016, and the deficit reached 2167. Yimei, which accounts for 89% of the total trade deficit, determined that China’s status role is undergoing such a change. China is shifting its focus from cargo output to sustained large-scale commercial capital output. Because China is a big country with long-term capital account surplus and surplus, China is facing the problem of returning trade surplus in the global economic balance. The way China is undergoing profound transformation is the export of special commercial capital from the official foreign exchange reserve. among. In 2004, the total overseas assets were 929.1 billion U.S. dollars, of which the reserve assets were 618.6 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 67%. The commercial overseas assets after excluding reserve assets were 310.5 billion U.S. dollars. In June this year, our total overseas assets went up to 66.446 billion U.S. dollars. Among them, the total official reserve assets of 3,100.4 billion US dollars, although still the largest foreign exchange reserve in the history of the world before, but his total proportion of overseas assets in China only fell to 47%, compared with 2004 It dropped by 20 percentage points. After excluding reserve assets, the overseas assets were 349.4 billion US dollars, which was higher than the US$336.68 billion in 2016, which was higher than US$125.4 billion, of which the overseas direct investment assets reached US$1.3697 billion. Under such circumstances, we can see what kind of world significance China's foreign investment has. This is one of the two major ways for China to balance the world economy. One is that importing one is investment, and the first one is very important in China's foreign investment in RMB internationalization. The significance of a country's internationalization of its currency is divided into two ways. One way is the British way, the other way is the American way. The British way is the surplus of the UK's current account balance in the heyday of its infancy. Through various kinds of foreign investment, this surplus of local currency will be put out to realize the return of project review and realize the internationalization of the British pound. After the Second World War, the United States adopted the long-term trade surplus deficit to meet the international market demand for the international currency such as the US dollar. The British route is more suitable for China than the US route, and it is also sustainable with China to promote the internationalization of the RMB. Under the circumstances, it faces the mitigation effect of the international liquidity shortage under the prospect of RMB internationalization and China's overseas investment in the US Federal Reserve. In this case, the above-mentioned changes of China's trading partners have brought two to China's trading partners. Opportunities for each of these opportunities, one of our opportunities in these two areas is China's opportunities to expand imports, and the second is China's continued opportunities to promote overseas investment. We are also willing to share this opportunity with our trading partners on a mutually beneficial basis. Achieving common growth, while for most emerging markets, China’s overseas assets are large, reaching more than $6.6 trillion at the end of June this year, but China’s official reserve assets are not part of the emerging market’s use, because China’s official reserves will be used to buy developed countries Market public bonds and other assets will not buy bonds in emerging markets. Only commercial capital output is the only capital available in China's overseas assets. This is a concern for most emerging markets. It is precisely because the growth of China's commercial capital output is an irreplaceable opportunity to use Chinese capital for most emerging markets. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, I would like to first make some suggestions for our trading partners based on our experience in the long-term use of foreign capital and so on.

The first one is to make a reasonable plan. Why should we emphasize this? Because I saw that we have some trading partners and he wants to take advantage of the opportunities of Chinese trade and Chinese investment under the “One Belt, One Road” planning framework, but they have some plans that are too unreasonable. I see some trades. The amount of plans to attract Chinese investment is as high as 250 times that of his GDP. This is obviously impossible. No country can make its fixed asset investment scale 250 times of GDP, if there is no reasonable planning. Then this is impossible to succeed.

The second is to create a good business environment. We may have a lot of trading partners, especially our emerging market trading partners, need to face up to the cover of your country's business environment in terms of economics, political stability, social security, etc. So how do you attract investors to participate in these risks? You may need to find ways to reduce the investor's consideration and give investors the hope of making a profit. In this respect, I would like to share with our trading partners the ancient traditional command of China, the case of buying a horse bone before the money was robbed, the memoirs of Li Lanqing, and after returning to the cross, I said that I would give you a thousand dollars to buy a thousand miles. How did you spend 500 gold to buy a horse bone back? I took the actual action, the whole world knows that you are sincerely willing to buy a thousand horses. We will bring the Maxima when we sit at home. Later, people are rushing to send them to Yanguo, our trading partners, we Friends, if you want to attract investors, Sang wants to attract the inflow of trade and investment. Can you also draw some inspiration from the ancient wisdom of China?

At the same time, we can also talk about one of the long-term foreign trade managers of China's Li Weiqing. It is the question of China and the French Peugeot Group discussing the establishment of a joint venture automobile factory in China more than 20 years ago. During the negotiation process of designing a joint venture automobile factory, the Chinese negotiations. Those who are afraid of China’s loss have made a lot of demands on the French side. The French side said that you have asked me a lot to understand that you want income, but have you considered it? What benefits can we get from this cooperation? If we can't get the benefits, why should I work with you? At that time, when the Chinese negotiators returned to talk with Vice Premier Li Lanqing, he was very touched. After that, the reason why China’s business environment can be continuously improved, China’s long-term maintenance of the largest foreign capital among developing countries in the world, this Improving the business environment and giving your partners a profitable opportunity is a very important success. Here I talked about one of our old stories and the stories of our modern leaders, that is, we hope to bring our experience and provide our lessons to our friends for reference, so that we can jointly explore China’s expansion of imports. Work with overseas investment opportunities to achieve a win-win situation. I still want to talk a lot, but the time is limited. Today, I’m here, welcome everyone’s attention, welcome everyone to comment on the article, thank you!

Editor in charge: Wang Zhen