China's warming foreign trade boosts global economic recovery

GUANGZHOU, Feb. 11 -- The booming orders at the beginning of 2023 mark a robust rebound in foreign trade in south China's Guangdong Province, a primary economic hub, injecting new impetus into the global economic recovery.

With eased epidemic controls and resumed international communication, particularly the economic and trade contacts, some factories in Huizhou City, Guangdong, are facing surging orders from overseas and a growing demand for industrial workers. Fierce competition to grab orders in the broad overseas markets is also in sight among Chinese enterprises.

The Guangdong One Nano Technology Co., Ltd. in Zhongkai High-tech Zone of Huizhou is now fully engaged in the spring recruitment and plans to double the size of its staff in 2023, following an increase of 279 percent in its revenue in 2022 and a busy order schedule for various nanomaterials before the second quarter of 2023.

"We are highly confident and motivated. We want to get our business off to a good start in the first quarter and strive to increase our production value by 10 percent this year," said Zhang Qian, general manager of Huizhou Macc Electronics Co., Ltd., which has sent a marketing team to visit clients for cooperation chances in the Middle East, Europe, the U.S.A. and the Republic of Korea.

Overall, the economic operation saw a striking recovery trend as the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain strengthened and market expectations improved. Statistics show that Chinese enterprises have robust confidence and optimistic prospects.

The purchasing managers' index for China's manufacturing sector rose 3.1 percent from the previous month to 50.1 percent in January, while the new orders index rose seven percentage points to 50.9 percent, according to a recent release by the service industry survey center of the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

The outstanding performance is part and parcel of the efforts by Chinese enterprises regarding digital transformation and business format innovation.

Benefiting from the expansion of the intelligent manufacturing production lines and automatic assembly lines, as well as the update of the information managing system, Galanz, a Foshan-based home appliance manufacturer, has received rapidly growing foreign-trade orders for microwave ovens, toasters, and ovens and dishwashers.

Apart from production, enterprises also attach more importance to cross-border e-commerce, greatly facilitating their foreign trade business.

"Our salesmen were busy with orders received during the Spring Festival. The inquiries and orders on Alibaba.com over the holiday were higher than usual, totaling more than 3 million U.S. dollars," said Zhao Yunqi, general manager of Sunway Solar Co., Ltd., whose rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are distributed to the overseas warehouse upon production due to the burgeoning order number.

Cross-border e-commerce platforms like Alibaba.com have become an accelerator for new business formats to develop. The cross-border index on Alibaba.com shows that high-quality business opportunities in the new energy industry on the platform have increased by 92 percent, making it an export highlight.

The platform also plans to launch 100 overseas digital exhibitions this year, together with 30,000 cross-border live broadcasts and 40 press conferences for new products in March.

Despite challenges such as the rising risk of global economic recession and slowing growth of overseas market demand, China's import and export potential and contribution to the world economy remain promising.

The deepened opening up of China's economy and recovery in domestic demand could boost global economic growth by about one percent in 2023, according to a late report by the Goldman Sachs Group.

China will stick to a high-level opening up to make foreign trade more convenient and rewarding by multiple methods. Offline domestic export exhibitions will resume, and enterprises will receive full support to participate in professional expos abroad.

China will also strengthen cooperation with trading partners, leverage the advantages of its massive market, increase quality product imports from other countries, and stabilize the global trade supply chain, according to an official of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.

The 133rd China Import and Export Fair, or Canton Fair, scheduled to open on April 15, will fully resume offline exhibitions. Chu Shijia, director of the China Foreign Trade Center, said that more than 40,000 enterprises have applied to participate. The number of offline exhibition booths is expected to increase from 60,000 to nearly 70,000.

"The full recovery of the exhibition industry will accelerate, and the flourishing of trade, investment, consumption, tourism, catering, and other industries will follow," said Chu, who noted that significant development and improvement of the Canton Fair will also better contribute to high-quality economic development.