As the opening year of the 14th five year plan, the development of foreign trade has attracted much attention. According to the data, in 2021, the total import and export value of China's goods trade reached US $6.05 trillion in US dollars, which greatly exceeded the expected target of US $5.1 trillion in 2025 in the "14th five year plan" business development plan, and achieved a higher than expected growth. In the first 11 months of 2021, China's total import and export of services was 4.68 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.7%, and the trade deficit decreased by 69.9%. The position of a major country in goods trade is stable, the importance of service trade in foreign trade is more significant, and the comprehensive strength of foreign trade is further enhanced.
The foundation for the steady improvement of foreign trade volume and quality continued to be consolidated. In 2021, the import and export of general trade accounted for 61.6% of the total foreign trade value, an increase of 1.7 percentage points over the same period last year. The ability of independent innovation and brand building of foreign trade enterprises has been continuously improved, and the endogenous driving force of foreign trade development has been increasing. Imports and exports to ASEAN, the European Union and the United States were 5.67 trillion yuan, 5.35 trillion yuan and 4.88 trillion yuan respectively, an increase of 19.7%, 19.1% and 20.2% respectively. ASEAN is the largest trading partner, accounting for 14.5% of the total foreign trade value, indicating that emerging trade forces are gradually rising and playing an increasingly important role in the international economic and trade pattern. The export competitiveness of high-tech and high value-added products has been continuously enhanced, and the commodity structure has been continuously optimized. In 2021, China exported 12.83 trillion yuan of mechanical and electrical products, an increase of 20.4%, accounting for 59% of the total export value. The export of high-tech products reached 6.33 trillion yuan, an increase of 17.9%. The bulk commodity market drives the import growth. For example, according to the customs data, the average import prices of iron ore, crude oil, coal and natural gas increased by 45.2%, 42%, 54% and 30.4% respectively compared with 2020. The service trade deficit narrowed significantly and the structure continued to be optimized. From January to November 2021, the import and export of knowledge intensive services increased by 13.5% year-on-year, higher than the expected annual growth rate of 8% in the 14th five year plan for business development, of which the export of intellectual property royalties increased by 29.3%.
In addition to the impact of the "low base" in 2020, the main reasons for the higher than expected growth of foreign trade are as follows: first, the global economy maintains a recovery trend and the international market demand gradually recovers; Second, China's economy continues to recover steadily, and the effect of stabilizing foreign trade policy continues to release; Third, the international market was affected by the epidemic, and some orders were transferred to China; Fourth, the rise of commodity prices has a great pulling effect on import growth; Fifth, innovative factors such as new formats and models of foreign trade continue to play a role.
Looking forward to 2022, the international environment in China will be more complex and changeable. The world economy is expected to continue the recovery trend, the economies of developed economies continue to recover, and the demand of the international market gradually warms up. The upward risk of global inflation has intensified, and there is great uncertainty in the outlook. China has a solid macroeconomic foundation, strong resilience and vitality of foreign trade enterprises, innovative development of foreign trade, and constantly tap the growth potential. The regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement (RCEP) has officially entered into force and applied to join the comprehensive and progressive cross The Pacific Securities Co.Ltd(601099) partnership agreement (cptpp) and the digital economy partnership agreement (depa), so as to promote high-level opening-up and strengthen regional economic and trade cooperation. These factors have effectively driven the growth of China's foreign trade.
At the same time, the differentiation of world economic recovery has intensified. The IMF believes that the total output of developed economies is expected to return to the pre epidemic level in 2022, while it will take longer for the total output of emerging and developing economies to recover. Covid-19 pneumonia epidemic is still spreading all over the world, the transmission cycle and variants are still unknown, ups and downs are repeated and full of uncertainty. Commodity prices rose. The world bank issued the commodity market outlook in October 2021, which pointed out that energy prices rose by more than 80% in 2021 and will still rise slightly in 2022. The global energy supply is facing the dilemma of shortage, and the prices of coal and crude oil rise too fast. International logistics transportation capacity is tight, and shipping prices continue to soar. The international industrial chain supply chain transmission is not smooth, and the risk of supply-demand imbalance increases under the pattern of industrial chain reconstruction. The stimulus plan of the world's major economies is unsustainable, and the Federal Reserve releases the signal of raising interest rates and shrinking the table. Exchange rate fluctuations affect the normal operation of some foreign trade enterprises and increase trade risks. These factors may lead to fluctuations in the growth rate of foreign trade.
Overall, the macroeconomic growth rate is expected to slow down in 2022. Due to the high base of import and export volume, the continuous recovery of production capacity in some countries, the rise of shipping prices of resource factors, the increased risk of exchange rate fluctuation, the government's continued promotion of deleveraging and other issues, China's foreign trade situation in 2022 is still complex and severe, with more unstable, uncertain and unbalanced factors. It is expected that the growth rate of foreign trade in the whole year will decline, but it will remain relatively stable on the whole. The structure of foreign trade import and export will be further optimized to maintain the trend of accelerating high-quality development.
(Han Yapin, associate researcher, Institute of international trade and economic cooperation, Ministry of Commerce; Liu Jianying, deputy director and associate researcher, Institute of foreign trade, Institute of international trade and economic cooperation, Ministry of Commerce)