Coinciding with the sixth China International Import Expo, the 2023 International Forum on Imports was successfully held on November 4 at East China University of Science and Technology. It was attended by Pamela Coke-Hamilton, Director General of the Center of International Trade from UN, Hong Xiaodong, former Director of China Society for World Trade Organization Studies and Division of International Trade Organizations of the Ministry of Commerce, and Robert Koopman, former Chief Economist of WTO. The forum was presented by Yu Miaojie, a deputy to the National People’s Congress, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Committee and President of Liaoning University, and was attended by over 300 experts from international organizations, Chinese governmental departments, academic and business communities. Also, more than 200,000 people watched the live broadcast online. Du Huifang, Secretary of the CPC Committee of ECUST, delivered a speech at the forum and Yan Haifeng, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Committee of ECUST, hosted the opening ceremony.
Speech by Du Huifang
Keynote speeches
President Yu said in his speech that the international community is now moving into a critical stage while China is also challenged by strenuous domestic reform tasks. Evolving into a new phase featuring high quality development, China should strive to forge a new development pattern where domestic market plays a leading role while letting domestic and foreign markets boost each other, with international circulation remaining critical. He added that the focus of economic globalization lies in trade at a global scale, which is mainly measured by two indicators: regionalization in production and polygonization in trade. From a factual perspective, even if trade products now face more tariff barriers, those two features in trade remain unchanged.
Regarding the current international economic and trade pattern, President Yu believes that China’s opening up facilitates the global process, which is characterized by a triangular balance of power, namely the USA-led NAFTA, the German-led EU region and the China-led RCEP region.
He stated that “the triangular balance does not imply that each is isolated from the other and they are seeking even closer two-point cooperation”. NAFTA and the EU are in a process of negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) while the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) signed between China and the EU is making steady progress. Moreover, China is seeking to be a member of CPTPP, which falls into the category of NAFTA.
In this context, President Yu offered the following six proposals to build a comprehensive and new opening pattern in China that is more omni-directional, multilevel, and wide-ranging:
First, diversify its export destinations. Faced with an internationally shifting landscape, export-oriented enterprises in China should not only focus on mature markets in Europe and America, but take an active approach to explore markets in emerging economies, such as the BRIC countries and Central Asia. China’s enterprises should also provide tailored products to export destinations based on their income level and realities so as to satisfy local needs and while still enhancing competitiveness.
Second, enlarge its import scale. In formulating macro policies, China should continue to expand exports while lowering tariffs to reduce trade costs. By doing so, more international products will have access to Chinese markets that will in turn satisfy the sense of happiness and sense of gain of domestic consumers. Importing intermediate products would be beneficial for enterprises to lower their costs and increase sustainable incomes. Imported final products, while leading to competition in the short-term, would facilitate productivity in industries and bring advantages to enterprises in the long-term.
Third, seek uniqueness in its service trade. Having been ranked first in terms of global commodity trade, China still needs to develop further its service trade by expanding total volume, adjusting structure and by offering unique features. According to the Report on China’s Development of Trade in Services 2022, a gap still exists between China’s total volume of trade in services and that of the USA. China’s main industries have huge deficits in trade services, education being one of the industries with the biggest deficit. As China opens wider to the outside world, China’s rich tourist resources should have attracted more international visitors. Yet China currently fails to provide enough soft facilities and commendable services. In addition, competitive advantages should be identified to display distinctive features as China conducts trade service activities, the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) industry being an example.
Fourth, deepen its foreign direct investment (FDI). China’s FDI has always been at the forefront of the world and much progress has already been made under the ‘Go Global’ strategy. Having said that, Chinese enterprises should aim to ‘go deep’ and ‘go higher’. ‘Go deep means establishing a sincere relationship with local people in foreign countries that connects to them and bears more social responsibility. ‘Go higher’ refers to giving priority to product quality and working to enhance technological advancement.
Fifth, achieve regional economic and trade cooperation at different levels. The progress of China’s accession to CPTPP is challenging because of the reality of its large member countries and complicated situations. From factor opening to institutional opening, the construction of building a free trade area that connects Japan, South Korea and China matters equally for each country. As the three countries are geographically close and enjoy respective strengths, beefing up cooperation in economy and trade is conductive to achieving regional economic integration and reinforcing regional cooperation in industrial chains.
Sixth, conduct differentiated strategies under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The co-construction of the BRI is moving into its second decade. In the future, the focus of the Land Silk Road should be strengthening economic and trade cooperation with the Far East region of Russia. With respect to the Maritime Silk Road, priorities should be given to the construction of a China-Japan-Korea free trade agreement (FTA) on the one hand and launching trade activities with the Middle East, West Asia and North Africa on the other, building FTAs with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in particular. With these efforts, the Northeast Sea-land Corridor will come into being to reshape China’s strategic map of opening to the outside world.
Director General Pamela Coke-Hamilton’s video speech held a positive attitude to China’s role in promoting global trade and she extended thanks to student volunteers from ECUST who attended the forum. Former Director Hong Xiaodong noted that as China works to be member of DEPA and makes solid efforts in launching digital cooperation under the BRI, it is reasonable to believe that China will have an increasingly important role to play. In his video speech themed ‘WTO’s Value under the Background of Geo-economic Differentiation’, former Chief Economist Robert Koopman emphasized that multilateral cooperation has a crucial role to play in responding to an array of economic and social challenges and greatly galvanizes economic growth. Che Yi, a distinguished researcher from ECUST also made a keynote speech themed ‘Entity List and Enterprise Innovation’.