Exports rose again in May, which is certainly a good thing. But we see many interpretations that are fundamentally wrong and purely misleading to the masses; There are also several red flags that are very alarming.
What are the reasons for the continued growth of exports this year? What's wrong with that? Let's make it clear for all at once today.
I believe you have seen the foreign trade data in May, so let's review it briefly, and at the same time pick some key points, let's take a look.
The total value of imports and exports of goods in May was 3.71 trillion yuan (the same below), a year-on-year increase of 8.6%. Among them, exports were 2.15 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.2%; imports were 1.56 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.2%.
This data is really fierce enough, especially the strong export growth, and there should be no noise now, right?
From January to May, the total import and export value of trade in goods was 17.5 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.3%. Among them, exports were 9.95 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.1%; imports were 7.55 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.4%; The trade surplus was 2.4 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.2 percent.
This year's foreign trade data has grown across the board, finally reversing the unfavorable situation that dragged on last year.
Let's take a look at a few more key data, which is also interesting.
First, in the first five months, ASEAN's trade volume was 2.77 trillion yuan, accounting for 15.8%, a year-on-year increase of 10.8%; the EU's trade volume was 2.23 trillion yuan, accounting for 12.7%, down 1.3% year-on-year; The U.S. trade volume was 1.87 trillion yuan, accounting for 10.7%, a year-on-year increase of 2%.
Second, the trade volume between China and Russia was 96.5 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 2.9%, of which exports to Russia were 41.8 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 1.8%.
Third, the structure of export products has become significantly high-end, and high-tech industrial products have become the main force of exports. Mechanical and electrical products accounted for almost 60%, a year-on-year increase of 7.9%.
Fourth, in terms of the number of exports, the highest growth was 26.8% for automobiles, 25% for ships, and 24.6% for household appliances.
Fifth, integrated circuit exports have become a dark horse, with an amount of 444.7 billion yuan, an increase of 25.5%, surpassing the 329.7 billion yuan of automobile exports.
The data is basically over, and this year's foreign trade is red across the board, why?
Some people say that in recent years, the US-led decoupling and trade wars have failed; Some people also say that our economic transformation and upgrading have been a great success.
Of course, we cannot say that without these factors, the trade war and decoupling and disconnection of the chain in the United States have caused us obvious problems. Our strategy has also been an effective check on them.
It is clear that our trade with the US has been sluggish and our trade with the EU has declined, for a complex set of reasons, including the impact of the trade war, as well as the impact of rising US dollar rates and a weak economy, and shrinking demand.
However, in the third quarter of last year, our exports fell badly, by more than 10% every month, and they have all failed in the past few months? Did we succeed in the transformation?
Less than a year from the third quarter of last year to now, the fundamentals of the trade war and decoupling have not only not changed, but have deteriorated, the United States has raised tariffs again, and Europe is also ready to move.
The strong growth of our foreign trade shows that the global demand for Chinese goods is very strong, and our transformation and upgrading have long been successful.
However, whether it is a trade war or economic transformation and upgrading, this is not a short-term thing, but a long-term factor, and it is impossible to completely reverse the situation in a few months.
The most important problem is that people already have demand, and in the past, buying less was a lack of dollars, but now this constraint has changed.
Since 2023, in order to solve the liquidity crisis caused by the US dollar's interest rate hike and the high risk of relying on the US dollar, the global wave of de-dollarization has risen.
De-dollarization is mainly due to several things, first, more countries settle in their own currencies, second, currency swap agreements are emerging, and thirdly, the settlement ratio of the renminbi in our trade exceeds that of the dollar.
One of the negative effects of the US dollar's interest rate hike is that it hits the activity of international trade and hurts the manufacturing industry in the producing countries. Last year, not only us, but also Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and other countries saw their exports decline, and Japan and South Korea even turned into deficits.
In the past two years, everyone was short of dollars, and our foreign trade also showed the characteristics of a high dependence on the United States.
Now that everyone is not short of money, and we can even buy things without dollars, international trade has become more active, and our dependence on the United States has decreased.
Our trade with ASEAN has seen the highest growth, while exports to the United States and Europe have been weak, and there is also a component of processing and entrepot trade, and many goods are re-exported through Southeast Asia.
At the beginning of this year, everyone should have heard that our exports to Russia and some African countries were plagued by payment problems, Russia was short of yuan, and African countries were short of dollars.
That's why our exports to Russia have fallen.
Now, these problems have been partially solved, so May ushered in a peak export period.
Therefore, we must be wary of misunderstandings and even misstatements about US and European exports, and we must also be wary of people singing about our trade with Russia.
Another question is that we see people say, why are exports booming and so many people unemployed? This is another red flag.
This involves a relatively big problem, our economy is transforming to high-end manufacturing, and manufacturing is also transforming to intelligent manufacturing.
Manual production, which used to be highly reliant on human labor, is now becoming less and less; Moreover, the more high-end products such as automobiles and chips are manufactured, the higher the degree of intelligence and the less manpower is used.
This brings about a problem, after the transformation of our economic structure, the transformation of the structure of human resources.
This is a big topic, I won't expand it today, if you have any opinions, you can leave a message in the comment area to discuss.