Summary: On June 28, Li Keqiang, Member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Premier of the State Council, presided over a symposium on stabilizing foreign trade.
The Futures Daily reported on June 29 that Li Keqiang chaired the symposium on stabilizing foreign trade on June 28. Han Zheng, Member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council, attended the meeting.
At the meeting, the Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs reported on the current foreign trade situation and next steps. Leaders of enterprises including Galanz, Orient International, Neusoft, Haoshida, Zhiyu Information, and Jiayi Zhiyou connected via video and discussed their production, operation, import and export conditions in sectors such as home appliances, clothing, medical equipment, furniture, cross-border e-commerce platforms, and motorcycles. Li Keqiang learned in detail about their orders, employment, capital, and industrial and supply chains, and asked about their views on the future market situation and suggestions for national policies. He asked relevant departments to carefully study the issues and suggestions raised by enterprises and take measures to help them overcome difficulties.
Li Keqiang said that stabilizing the overall performance of foreign trade and foreign investment is crucial to stabilizing economic operation and employment. Since the beginning of this year, under the strong leadership of the Central Committee of the CPC with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, all localities and departments have actively and orderly promoted the resumption of work and production while effectively controlling the epidemic, and introduced a series of targeted policies. In recent months, foreign trade has stabilized somewhat. At present, the epidemic is still spreading globally, and the world economy is in severe recession. China's economy has become deeply integrated into the world economy, and the foreign trade environment will remain severe and complex in the next stage. Full estimation and preparation are required. It is necessary to adhere to Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, follow the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, focus on ensuring stability on the six fronts and maintaining security in the six areas, strengthen confidence in development, actively respond to difficulties and challenges, promote higher-level opening-up, innovate foreign trade models, and promote the stabilization and quality improvement of foreign trade, so as to support employment stability and economic stability.
Li Keqiang pointed out that in accordance with the requirements of ensuring employment, people's livelihoods, and market entities, policies introduced in the government work report to help enterprises relieve difficulties should be implemented promptly and thoroughly. While actively expanding domestic demand, new measures to stabilize foreign trade and foreign investment should be studied and introduced. In particular, support should be increased to protect small and medium-sized enterprises and labor-intensive enterprises, and help large backbone foreign trade enterprises solve difficulties, so as to better support employment stability. Improve the method of export tax rebates and accelerate the rebate process. Guide financial institutions to strengthen credit, credit insurance, guarantee and other financing support to ease liquidity difficulties of foreign trade enterprises. Continue to tap the potential of customs clearance facilitation reform and optimize services for foreign trade enterprises. Coordinate epidemic prevention and control with the work of stabilizing foreign trade and foreign investment, strengthen communication and coordination with relevant countries, smooth international freight channels, and open more fast-track corridors to facilitate the movement of business personnel. Encourage foreign trade enterprises to transform and upgrade, improve the quality and added value of export products, accelerate the development of cross-border e-commerce, online transactions and other new forms and models of foreign trade, encourage and guide diversified investment in building overseas warehouses, increase support for foreign trade service platforms that drive exports of small and medium-sized enterprises, and cultivate new growth points for foreign trade. All localities should improve measures for stabilizing foreign trade and foreign investment in light of local conditions.
Li Keqiang stressed that more measures to expand opening-up should be unswervingly introduced, and multi-field and multi-level international cooperation should be promoted. While deepening the opening-up of manufacturing, expand the opening-up of the services sector, especially high-end services. Further create a market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment, improve policies that encourage and attract foreign investment, and make China a hot land for more foreign investment and business. Enhance the attractiveness of the central and western regions and northeast China to undertake industrial transfers. Make greater efforts to maintain the stability of industrial and supply chains.
Hu Chunhua, Liu He, Wang Yi, Xiao Jie, and He Lifeng attended the meeting.