Smaller Chinese businesses stay strong despite international hardships

Smaller Chinese businesses in foreign trade have shown strong resilience and competitiveness despite the headwinds of a complicated international situation and the domestic resurgence of COVID-19 outbreak, a newly released report said.

Chinese cross-border financial services provider XTransfer and China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Commercial Sub-Council jointly published the March 2022 China Foreign Trade Export Leading Index on Wednesday.

According to the report, the overall index rose steadily in March, showing a relatively consistent trend when compared with the same period a year earlier, which indicates that unexpected factors domestically and internationally have not affected the development trend of the country's smaller foreign trade enterprises.

Receipts of micro, small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises increased by 15.7 percent year-on-year in March, the report said, slightly higher than the March growth rate of goods trade exports released by the General Administration of Customs, which was 12.9 percent.

Normally, in foreign trade, overseas buyers would make advance payments to Chinese exporters before the latter send out the goods and complete cross-border transportation, which is recorded in the customs statistics. Therefore, a receipt is regarded as an advanced indicator of the export performance in the coming period.

China's foreign trade export is expected to get out of the influence of domestic and foreign unfavorable factors and continue to show steady growth in the second quarter, the report said.

According to a separate report also jointly published by the two, competitiveness of Chinese micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in foreign trade have maintained a high level.

The "Competitiveness Index of China's Small, Medium and Micro Foreign Trade Enterprises in March 2022" shows that the index rose in March and returned to the level seen at the end of 2021, despite a short-time decline in February.

More and more enterprises have strengthened their digital capabilities; for example, they acquired customers through foreign social medias TikTok and Instagram. They have also decentralized their supply chain to enhance their risk resistance ability.

Chinese foreign trade businesses could face short-term pressure this year, but fundamentals of long-term growth will remain unchanged, the report said.

sally@chinadailyhk.com