Provide real financial support to foreign trade enterprises, addressing pain points and solving difficulties

Foreign trade is an important part of China's open - economy and a crucial driving force for the development of the national economy. In the first 10 months of this year, China's foreign trade development maintained a good momentum of quality improvement and stable quantity. The total value of imports and exports was 36.02 trillion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 5.2%.

Recently, reporters from the Securities Daily surveyed several foreign - trade enterprises and learned that a series of policies and measures introduced by various localities and departments to support the development of foreign - trade enterprises, such as increasing financing support for small, medium - sized and micro foreign - trade enterprises and implementing tax cuts and fee reductions, have effectively reduced the burden on enterprises. However, some foreign - trade enterprises still believe that there are problems such as difficulties in receiving payments and unclear preferential policies for enterprises, and they expect the favorable effects of foreign - trade - stabilizing policies to continue to be released.

Policy "Combination Punches" to Escort the Development of Foreign - trade Enterprises

Since the beginning of this year, many localities and departments have introduced a series of policies and measures to promote the stable growth of foreign trade. Reporters from the Securities Daily have sorted out and found that these policies and measures mainly focus on three aspects. First, increase financial and fiscal support, including launching new investment and financing models, optimizing the corporate financing environment, helping enterprises improve their exchange - rate risk management capabilities, and using real money from fiscal departments at all levels to support foreign - trade enterprises to "go global" and explore the international market. Second, cultivate new drivers of foreign trade, including promoting the development of digital trade, green trade, and cross - border e - commerce. Third, strengthen the service guarantee for foreign - trade enterprises, including improving the cooperation mechanism, providing information consultation and enterprise matchmaking, promoting key exhibitions, and facilitating the cross - border travel of business personnel, so as to create more trading opportunities.

In addition, in response to problems such as long payment collection cycles, few financing channels, and difficult bank credit for small and micro foreign - trade enterprises, many banks have innovatively launched loan products. For example, they integrate external data such as customs and tax data to "increase the credit" of enterprises and issue credit loans.

The person in charge of a small and micro foreign - trade enterprise engaged in toy import and export in Hubei Province told the reporter of the Securities Daily that due to the non - collection of some payment for goods, the enterprise is facing financial pressure in production. However, the company is small - scale and lacks mortgage - able assets. After consulting a certain bank, the bank's customer manager quickly made contact. After verifying data such as the enterprise's operating status and order contract performance, a credit loan of 1.8 million yuan was approved on the same day.

"Exchange - rate fluctuations are the biggest pain point for our export enterprises. In Zhejiang, financial institutions such as banks actively launch various exchange - rate hedging products and formulate 'one - to - one' plans for foreign - trade enterprises to meet the different forward exchange - rate and risk - preference requirements of enterprises for exchange - rate hedging businesses," said Zhu Qiucheng, CEO of Ningbo New Oriental Industry and Trade Co., Ltd., in an interview with the reporter of the Securities Daily.

The person in charge of a flower import and export company in Guangdong Province told the reporter that the export of fresh flowers has high requirements for timeliness. In order to ensure a better appearance of fresh flowers, departments such as the customs have set up special "green channels" for some products to help the company complete the customs clearance process in the shortest possible time.

Enterprises' Feedback on "Pain Points" and Expectations for Increased Policy Support

However, there are still some difficulties and pain points in the operation of foreign - trade enterprises that cannot be ignored. Song Siyuan, an associate researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, told the reporter of the Securities Daily that first, the uncertainty of the international trade environment has increased the market risks faced by foreign - trade enterprises. Export credit insurance is an important means for foreign - trade enterprises to prevent risks, but currently, its coverage is limited, and many enterprises cannot effectively transfer the risk of export proceeds collection. Second, the current tight shipping capacity and rising costs have affected the timely delivery of goods and the export operation efficiency of Chinese enterprises. Third, for small, medium - sized and micro foreign - trade enterprises, financing difficulties have restricted their operation and expansion.

Chen Jianwei, a professor at the Institute of National Opening - up of the University of International Business and Economics, told the reporter of the Securities Daily that factors such as the slowdown of global economic growth and geopolitics have brought a lot of uncertainties, and problems such as insufficient coverage of export credit insurance, financing difficulties, and logistics bottlenecks have become increasingly prominent.

During the investigation, the reporter learned that many foreign - trade enterprises are looking forward to more preferential financing support, greater financial subsidies, and overseas legal connection services. In addition, many enterprises also reported that they are not familiar with various policies and regulations and hope that relevant departments can conduct special training on customs declaration, taxation, intellectual property rights, etc.

Zhang Jun, the chairman of Wuxi Zehua Economic and Trade Co., Ltd., told the reporter of the Securities Daily that for enterprises that "go global" to participate in exhibitions, they hope to expand the intensity and scope of financial subsidies.

In addition, regarding shipping and costs, Zhang Jun said that this year, some key shipping channels such as the Red Sea and the Suez Canal have encountered obstacles. Some freight forwarders have arbitrarily increased prices, and market chaos has occurred frequently. He hopes that the market supervision department can do a good job in price supervision, maintain basic market stability, and reduce the burden and relieve difficulties for the sustainable development of enterprises.

Ding Lingchao, the assistant to the general manager of Zhejiang Yilu You Cross - border Trade Service Co., Ltd., told the reporter of the Securities Daily that our company is a cross - border e - commerce comprehensive service platform. As a platform provider, the main pain point is the issue of risk division and assumption. At present, cross - border e - commerce is developing rapidly. Especially, the cross - border e - commerce comprehensive service platform, as a new business form, is in a period of continuous exploration and experimentation. Relevant policies and regulations have certain lag or ambiguity, and it involves multiple regulatory departments such as customs, taxation, and foreign exchange. How to strengthen communication and coordination with various departments to ensure that the platform's own operation meets compliance requirements and at the same time help and serve foreign - trade enterprises to understand and abide by policies is a problem that needs to be solved currently.

"Professional training can be strengthened. For example, special training on customs declaration, taxation, intellectual property rights, etc. can be held, and experts or senior people can be invited to conduct detailed explanations and case analyses," Ding Lingchao said. Many cross - border e - commerce enterprises are not familiar with policies and regulations and their declaration processes are not standardized, resulting in low efficiency or even violations during customs declaration. In addition, for cross - border order declarations, relevant departments can provide more detailed operation manuals, etc., or guide enterprises lacking relevant human resources and capabilities to connect with cross - border e - commerce comprehensive service platforms for unified declarations.

New Policies Take Effect to Help Foreign - trade Enterprises Solve Problems

On November 21, the Ministry of Commerce issued the "Several Policies and Measures to Promote the Stable Growth of Foreign Trade" (hereinafter referred to as the "Policy Measures"), putting forward measures in nine aspects, including expanding the underwriting scale and coverage of export credit insurance, optimizing cross - border trade settlement, and promoting the development of cross - border e - commerce.

For example, regarding the development of cross - border e - commerce, the "Policy Measures" propose to continuously promote the construction of overseas smart logistics platforms. Support eligible localities to explore the construction of cross - border e - commerce service platforms to provide enterprises with connection services such as overseas legal and tax resources.

Regarding transportation services, etc., the "Policy Measures" propose to "improve the foreign - trade shipping guarantee capacity" and "support foreign - trade enterprises to strengthen strategic cooperation with shipping enterprises."

In terms of optimizing cross - border trade settlement, the "Policy Measures" propose to encourage financial institutions to provide more exchange - rate risk management products for foreign - trade enterprises to help enterprises improve their exchange - rate risk management capabilities.

It still takes time for policies to take effect after implementation. In this regard, Chen Jianwei suggested strengthening policy interpretation and publicity to improve the awareness and utilization rate of policies by foreign - trade enterprises; establishing a smooth policy feedback mechanism to collect enterprise opinions in a timely manner; and strengthening departmental coordination to form a policy synergy to ensure the effective implementation of policies.

Based on the current pain points and difficulties in the development of China's foreign - trade enterprises, how should future policies make efforts? Song Siyuan said that first, continue to increase financial support for foreign - trade enterprises. For example, expand the underwriting scale and coverage of export credit insurance, especially strengthen the financing support for small, medium - sized and micro foreign - trade enterprises. Second, actively cultivate new drivers of foreign trade, further improve the policy support system for cross - border e - commerce, promote the construction and optimization of cross - border e - commerce platforms, and improve the facilitation level of cross - border e - commerce. Third, strengthen the construction of foreign - trade comprehensive service platforms to provide enterprises with whole - process and integrated foreign - trade services. Fourth, strengthen trade cooperation with other countries and regions, promote the process of trade liberalization and facilitation, and provide more market opportunities for foreign - trade enterprises. Fifth, encourage foreign - trade enterprises to strengthen technological innovation and industrial upgrading, improve product added value and competitiveness, and respond to the increasingly fierce market competition.