According to data released by Wuhan Customs recently, in the first seven months of this year, the total value of imports and exports of goods in Hubei Province reached 350.57 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.7%. The March-July period was the fifth straight month of double-digit growth.

Since the beginning of this year, Hubei has effectively coordinated epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development. Foreign trade imports and exports have overcome many adverse effects such as the tightening of the external environment and the short-term impact of the epidemic, and continued to move towards high quality. Ye Xueping, director of the Economic Research Institute of Hubei Academy of Social Sciences, said: "In July, the total import and export value of Hubei increased by 40.6% year-on-year, and the growth rate reached a record high.

New breakthroughs in trade data

With a slight "swoosh" sound, a 10-meter-long U-rib with rust and paint on the surface was cleaned in only 8 minutes, while it took at least 1 hour to clean with traditional methods. This equipment is the first domestic laser device developed by HGLASER to clean the U-rib of bridges. The relevant person in charge of HGLASER said that with the continuous recognition of new technologies by the market, a variety of laser cleaning intelligent equipment produced by the company are not only widely used in China, but also won a place in the international market.

The dazzling export of high-tech products has always been one of the characteristics of Hubei's foreign trade. "The increase in the export proportion of high-tech products is inseparable from the acceleration of the construction of the core industry chain of 'optical core screen terminal network' in Hubei Province in recent years." Li Zhenhan, deputy director of the Wuhan Customs Statistical Analysis Department, said that in the first half of the year, Hubei's optoelectronic technology product exports grew the most. Fast, with a growth rate of 114.7%.

This year, Hubei's laser equipment exports are on the rise. Li Zhenhan's analysis believes that the rapid growth of laser equipment exports is related to the wide application of laser equipment such as laser cutting and the recent increase in demand for laser equipment in various countries. . In the first half of the year, the total volume of Hubei's laser equipment exports to Europe increased by 4.75 times year-on-year, accounting for 58.2% of Hubei's total laser equipment exports in the same period, an increase of 42 percentage points year-on-year.

From a comprehensive analysis of customs data, we can see that Hubei's foreign trade from January to July showed the characteristics of continuous growth and excellent import and export:

——In terms of volume, the import and export value of the top three markets all achieved growth. The top three trading partners are ASEAN, the European Union and the United States. The bilateral trade value was 52.67 billion yuan, 42.9 billion yuan, and 41.68 billion yuan, up 32%, 12.7%, and 5.9% year-on-year, respectively. In addition, the total import and export of countries along the “Belt and Road” was 98.38 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 31.6%.

——Looking at the structure, the import and export of general trade accounts for over 70%. From January to July, the import and export of general trade was 263.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.2%, accounting for 75.1% of the province's total foreign trade value. Integrated circuits are the largest imported commodity, with imported integrated circuits of 23.74 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.3%, accounting for 20.8% of the total import value.

Opening up to a new level

On August 19, in the private science and technology industrial park of Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone, the production workshop of Wuhan Polytechnic Hydrogen Power Technology Co., Ltd. was busy. In the constant temperature and clean production workshop, the first automatic membrane electrode production line in China is running at full capacity, and black films as thin as newspapers are continuously produced.

"This is a CCM-type membrane electrode independently developed and produced by us. It has been applied to more than 1,000 mainstream hydrogen fuel cell commercial vehicles in China, and has been exported to more than 10 countries and regions such as the United States, Germany, and South Korea, realizing domestic membrane electrodes. Reverse output to international monopoly." Tian Xingxing, general manager of Wuhan University Hydrogen Power, said.

Under the severe external environment, Hubei private enterprises actively overcome difficulties and show strong resilience, and the export performance of high-tech private enterprises is gratifying. From January to July, the import and export value of private enterprises in Hubei Province was 217.19 billion yuan, an increase of 30.6%, accounting for 62% of the total import and export value of the province during the same period, and an increase of 4.2 percentage points compared with the same period last year. The relevant person in charge of Wuhan Customs said: "In the first seven months, the export growth rate of Hubei private enterprises was higher than the overall level, which shows that the role of private enterprises in stabilizing foreign trade has been further strengthened."

With the official implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) on January 1 this year, Hubei's foreign trade development has ushered in new opportunities and new momentum. RCEP has become an important force to promote the high-quality development of Hubei's foreign trade.

Data show that from January to July, Hubei's imports and exports to the other 14 RCEP member countries reached 104.66 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.5%, accounting for 29.9% of Hubei's total import and export value during the same period. Many business leaders interviewed by the reporter believe that the policy dividends brought by RCEP will help companies develop overseas markets. Let the road of win-win cooperation become wider and wider.

In addition, the four comprehensive bonded zones that have been closed and operated in Hubei have taken the lead in building an open platform to promote the accelerated development of new forms of foreign trade and new models, and have achieved good results.

On April 1, after the official implementation of the "Administrative Measures of the Customs of the People's Republic of China for Comprehensive Bonded Zones", Wuhan Customs carried out policy publicity and implementation through multiple channels, in-depth interpretation of the focus content of enterprises' concerns, service enterprises to fully enjoy policy dividends, and the vitality of enterprises in the area was stimulated. Yang Liangyong, deputy director of Wuhan Customs, said: "In the first half of this year, Hubei Province's comprehensive protection zone was prosperous and relatively balanced, with exports of 17.57 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 91%; imports of 15.29 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 45.9%; total import and export value 32.86 billion yuan, an increase of 67% year-on-year, driving the foreign trade of Hubei Province to increase by 5.4 percentage points, accounting for 11.3% of the total foreign trade value of the province during the same period. The number of enterprises with import and export performance in the comprehensive bond area increased by 34.4% compared with the same period last year. "

Institutional innovation launches new measures

On August 12, Zuo Li, the customs manager of Hongfujin Precision Industry (Wuhan) Co., Ltd., handled the change of the account book of processing trade through the "single window" of international trade. Just after submitting the application to the customs, the system immediately shows that it has been approved. This marks the first time that automatic approval has been achieved for the change of hand (account) books since Wuhan Customs carried out the reform of centralized processing trade operations.

"The automatic approval of account book changes is really convenient! Now we can handle business 7 x 24 hours a day, which meets the delivery characteristics of customers' customized demand delivery mode, and ensures timely and fast delivery of orders." Zuo Li said.

At the beginning of this year, Hubei Province issued the "Notice on Doing a Good Job in the Replication and Promotion of the Sixth Batch of Reform Pilot Experiences in China (Hubei) Pilot Free Trade Zone", duplicating and promoting the 18 pilot experiences of the Hubei Free Trade Zone's 2021 institutional innovation in the province. The reform of centralized operation of processing trade is one of them. In the second half of this year, similar reforms will be rolled out one after another to promote the continuous growth of Hubei's foreign trade.

In response to the measures issued by the State Council to promote the stable growth of foreign trade, Wuhan Customs took the initiative to connect and act actively. "Since this year, Wuhan Customs has introduced 30 measures to promote the stability and improvement of Hubei's foreign trade, and fully promote the stability and improvement of Hubei's foreign trade." Tian Shuai, director of the comprehensive business department of Wuhan Customs, said that it has continued to optimize the port business environment, Positive results have been achieved in ensuring the smooth flow of freight logistics and optimizing the customs clearance process. Established a regional cooperation mechanism for the customs of Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and carried out cooperation in 14 business areas including port supervision, inspection and quarantine, free trade and special areas to achieve "joint law enforcement, joint construction and sharing, mutual recognition and mutual assistance"; Comprehensively promote the "ship-side pick-up" mode of imported goods and the "direct-loading on arrival" mode of export goods, and independently develop a "logistics auxiliary management system" to realize the intelligent management of the whole process of enterprise reservation, cargo loading and unloading, and checkpoint entry and exit; establish fresh Agricultural Products The green channel for customs clearance allows perishable agricultural products originating from RCEP member countries to be released within 6 hours.

In order to promote the stability and improvement of foreign trade, cities and prefectures in Hubei have also taken active actions. Xiangyang City has compiled and issued the "Compilation of Foreign Trade Policies of Xiangyang City", which includes all the foreign trade policies of the central, provincial and municipal governments; Xiaonan District of Xiaogan City organized foreign trade enterprises in its jurisdiction to carry out customs business training; Zhangwan District of Shiyan City issued "Supporting the Transformation and Development of the Real Economy". "Ten Policies (for Trial Implementation)", which provides policy support for foreign trade enterprises in exhibiting, logistics, export, etc.

"Overall, Hubei's foreign trade has achieved steady progress. It started smoothly in the first quarter and grew rapidly in the second quarter, laying a solid foundation for maintaining stability and improving foreign trade throughout the year." Ye Xueping said that the future development of Hubei's foreign trade still faces some challenges. Unstable and uncertain factors, with the accelerated implementation of a series of policies and measures to stabilize the economy and the further smooth flow of foreign trade logistics, Hubei's foreign trade import and export is expected to continue to maintain a stable growth momentum.