Daily reporter: Ye Xiaodan Daily editor: Liang Xiao On March 7, the General Administration of Customs released foreign trade data for the first two months of 2024. According to statistics, from January to February this year, my country's total import and export value of goods tra

Every reporter: Ye Xiaodan Every editor: Liang Xiao

Lu Daliang, director of the Statistical Analysis Department of the General Administration of Customs, said that in the first two months, my country's trade in goods continued the positive trend since the fourth quarter of last year, with year-on-year growth for five consecutive months, and the scale of import and export hit a record high for the same period in history.

According to the disclosed export data of many cities, the growth rate of many key foreign trade cities in the first two months is remarkable.

Shenzhen’s exports from January to February increased by 53.1% year-on-year

In the first two months of this year, many cities’ export growth data hit new highs:

Shenzhen’s total import and export value was 675.18 billion yuan, an increase of 45%, of which exports were 441.44 billion yuan, an increase of 45%. 53.1%.

Ningbo’s total import and export value was 217.83 billion yuan, an increase of 16.3%, of which exports were 140.77 billion yuan, an increase of 17.4%.

Suzhou’s total import and export value was 388.02 billion yuan, an increase of 13.5%, of which exports were 235.6 billion yuan, an increase of 11.6%.

Dongguan City’s total import and export value was 185.33 billion yuan, an increase of 10.6%, of which exports were 120.58 billion yuan, an increase of 10.5%.

It is worth noting that Shenzhen, the “top student” in foreign trade, had particularly strong export growth in the first two months. What is the reason behind this?

Wang Zhen, deputy director of the Regional Development Planning Institute of China (Shenzhen) Comprehensive Development Research Institute, said in an interview with the media: "It mainly benefits from three factors. First, the 'New Three Samples' products are stable and reinforced, and the It has played a more active role in driving the growth of foreign trade; secondly, the policy to stabilize foreign trade has continued to exert force, and the confidence of operating entities has continued to increase; thirdly, thanks to the low base effect in the same period last year, the growth rate has improved higher than expected."

From the data point of view , in the past 31 years, Shenzhen's total export value has ranked first among mainland cities, ranking first for 31 consecutive years. The excellent data also aroused everyone's curiosity, what is the strength of Shenzhen's exports?

Industry insiders believe that the most direct reason is that Shenzhen has a large number of internationally competitive companies, such as Huawei, ZTE, BYD, DJI, etc.

Picture source: Photo by reporter Cong Sen (data map)

Large enterprises have contributed a large amount of money to Shenzhen's exports. It is worth asking whether Shenzhen's foreign trade competitiveness is sustainable.

In the past, Shenzhen has proven itself by ranking first in total export value for 31 years. The key to the resilience of export growth in the future depends on whether it can continue to cultivate excellent enterprises and generate a steady stream of new momentum.

Cross-border e-commerce, as one of the new formats of foreign trade exports, has shown a trend of rapid growth in recent years. Shenzhen's cross-border e-commerce is active and has cultivated many emerging brands. Let’s take a look at the potential of Shenzhen’s foreign trade competitiveness from the perspective of new cross-border e-commerce formats.

grabbed 43 seats on the top 100 list. Why has Shenzhen become a fertile ground for the development of cross-border e-commerce brands?

According to customs data, my country's cross-border e-commerce exports will be 1.83 trillion yuan in 2023, an increase of 19.6%. According to "Worker Daily", statistics show that in the past five years, the scale of China's cross-border e-commerce has increased nearly 10 times, with an annual growth rate of more than 30%, accounting for nearly 40% of international trade.

Compared with traditional b2b foreign trade, cross-border e-commerce has both cross-border b2b and cross-border b2c transactions. Directly facing c-end consumers, companies can build their own brands and extend to both ends of the smile curve. Obtaining more considerable added value also provides a new path for "overtaking in corners" for "Made in China" to become a "Chinese brand".

Of course, branding is more than just advertising. It is not easy to build and sustain a brand that is popular with consumers. It requires the ability to understand consumer needs, strong R&D and supply chain management capabilities, sufficient channel resources, rich marketing experience and community operation capabilities. It can be said that brand power is a reflection of an enterprise's comprehensive competitiveness.

According to China’s top 100 cross-border e-commerce brand influence list (2024.01-2024.02), Shenzhen has 43 seats, followed by Guangzhou with 8 seats, Suzhou with 7 seats, Beijing with 7 seats, Shanghai with 5 seats, Hangzhou with 4 seats, Ningbo with 3 seats, 3 seats in Changsha.

The brands on the list are distributed in different regions and categories, but from a city perspective, the differences in geographical distribution of industries are clearly visible.

Guangzhou has a developed clothing industry, so there is cross-border e-commerce super unicorn shein; Suzhou has clean home appliance brands such as ecovacs, tineco and dreame, with obvious industrial chain advantages; Xuchang, an ordinary prefecture-level city, has an established wig industry In this issue of the list, two brands, unice and modern show, from Xuchang are on the list.

Shenzhen’s brands are mainly concentrated in consumer electronics-related fields. In some emerging segments, Shenzhen’s cross-border e-commerce brands have great advantages. For example, creality, bambu lab, anycubic and elegoo in the 3D printing industry are all from Shenzhen; ecoflow, jackery and bluetti in the portable energy storage industry. Also from Shenzhen.

Cross-border e-commerce consumer electronics leader Anker Innovation (300866.sz, stock price 83.32 yuan, market value 33.864 billion yuan) has three brands, anker, eufy and soundcore, on the list, and they are all ranked high. Anker Innovation is registered in Changsha, but the consumer electronics industry chain is concentrated in Shenzhen and surrounding areas, so many of its employees are in Shenzhen. The company spent 1.542 billion yuan to buy a building in Shenzhen to build its southern headquarters. The development of Anker Innovation is actually closely related to Shenzhen.

can see that Shenzhen’s brands on the list also involve smart home, maternal and child products, shoes and clothing, offices, outdoor sports, etc. This reflects Shenzhen’s diversified economic structure. At the same time, a large number of new cross-border e-commerce brands have emerged, which also highlights the vitality of Shenzhen’s new foreign trade formats.

Daily Economic News