Increasing uncertainty in the world economic outlook

Novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic has brought serious impact on the world economy since the global financial crisis has not yet fully recovered from the crisis. According to the report of global investment trend monitoring released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and development (UNCTAD), global foreign direct investment (FDI) will drop by 42% in 2020; The decrease of FDI was mainly concentrated in developed countries, with a year-on-year decrease of 69%; The inflow of foreign capital to developing economies decreased by 12% year-on-year.

Novel coronavirus pneumonia is still the main body of the global commodity market and service market. However, the three prediction indicators of international economic growth, international trade and international investment show that the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic on the developed countries is more than that of the emerging and developing economies, indicating that the international market will shrink significantly. According to the world economic outlook report issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), although the recovery momentum of the world economy in 2021 is stronger, due to the differentiation of recovery paths, there are obvious differences in the recovery speed between different economies and within the same economy. The crisis may have a lasting impact on the economy and multiple potential risks coexist, The global economic outlook is facing great uncertainty.

Since the reform and opening up, foreign trade has been playing an important role in promoting China's economic growth and achieving sustainable development“ During the period of the 14th five year plan, under the background of shrinking global market, rising trade protectionism, increasing geopolitical risks and increasing instability and uncertainty of world economic prospects, it is particularly necessary to better deal with the risks and challenges of changes in the external environment and stabilize the basic situation of foreign trade and foreign investment in China.

In this regard, on the one hand, it is necessary to base itself on the domestic circulation, promote the construction of a strong domestic market and trade power, and form a strong gravitational field for global resource elements. In particular, we should rely on a strong domestic market, link up production, distribution, circulation and consumption, break down the institutional and institutional barriers that hinder the market-oriented allocation of production factors and the circulation of goods and services, and take the supply side structural reform as the main line to form a higher level dynamic balance between demand pulling supply and supply creating demand. On the other hand, on the basis of smooth domestic circulation, we should promote the coordinated development of domestic and foreign demand, import and export, foreign investment and foreign investment, promote the mutual promotion of domestic and international double circulation, and accelerate the cultivation of new advantages in participating in international cooperation and competition.

Digital technology promotes digital transformation

With the rapid development of digital technology, digital technologies such as 5g, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, blockchain and so on have caused significant changes in the scale, content, structure and speed of international trade. In the future, the main body of international trade will develop from final product trade and intermediate product trade to digital trade, which is worthy of great attention.

China is a big trading country in the world, the largest country of goods trade and the second largest country of service trade. In 2020, the total import and export value of goods trade will be 32.16 trillion yuan, and that of service trade will be 4.56 trillion yuan. In the wave of digital economy, whether we can grasp the development trend of global digital trade and become a big country of global digital trade depends on whether we can make good use of digital technology and accelerate the digital transformation. We need to make breakthroughs in the two dimensions of digital industrialization and industrial digitization to continuously improve the level of trade digitization.

To realize the digital transformation, we need to give better play to the role of the government. First, formulate relevant strategies and plans aimed at improving technology and promoting the development of digital production and service, give play to the guiding role of the plan for enterprise investment, encourage enterprises to build a new digital supply chain system, and establish a comprehensive service platform for import and export and digital transformation; Second, increase investment in digital infrastructure, accelerate the construction of digital government, digital society and digital economy, and improve the digital and intelligent level of national economic and social governance; Third, speed up the formulation of policies and regulations in the digital field, effectively improve the intellectual property protection system, establish a digital risk prevention mechanism, and ensure the data security of national interests, business secrets and personal privacy in the process of data market opening.

International Economic and trade rules are being restructured

At present, the global trade rules are in the process of major adjustment. The reform of WTO, the negotiation of digital trade rules, the refinement of international goods trade rules, and the improvement of international service trade rules are constantly advancing. It is in the reshaping of international economic and trade rules that the "new map" of Global trade has gradually become clear.

At present, the new round of international opening has shifted from "border opening" to "opening within the border", that is, from the opening of border measures of tariff and non-tariff barriers to the system, regulation, standards and policies within the border, such as negative list management system, intellectual property protection system, competition neutral policy, etc. In this context, it is urgent for China to speed up the construction of a new high-level open economic system and form a new advantage in international competition.

How to better adapt to the new changes of international economic and trade rules? On the one hand, it is necessary to comprehensively deepen the reform, accelerate the market-oriented allocation reform of land, labor, capital, technology, data and other factors, form an efficient, standardized and fair domestic unified market, and build a high standard market system. We should give full play to the decisive role of the market in the allocation of resources, give better play to the role of the government, and build a high-level socialist market economic system. On the other hand, it is necessary to implement a high level of opening up, build an institutional system and regulatory model that are consistent with the international prevailing rules, deepen the opening of commodity and factor flow, steadily expand the institutional opening of rules, regulations, management and standards, and improve the national treatment plus negative list management system before foreign investment access, and the negative list management system of cross-border service trade.

Challenges to the sustainable development of trade

In 2021, the global risk report issued by the world economic forum pointed out that from the perspective of risk occurrence probability and impact in the next decade, environmental risk will be the biggest risk faced by human beings in the future, especially in extreme weather, failure to cope with climate change, natural disasters, loss of biodiversity, man-made environmental disasters, etc.

Sustainable development and environmental protection are the core objectives of the multilateral trading system. Environmental protection and sustainable development complement each other. It should be noted that the challenge of global environmental risk to the sustainable development of trade is still severe. In the face of this challenge, if China wants to make greater contribution to global sustainable development, it still needs to continue to make arduous efforts, strengthen the construction of ecological civilization, accelerate the adjustment and optimization of industrial structure and energy structure, and advocate green and low-carbon production and life style.

In this regard, first, we should fully implement the concept of green development, further promote the coordination of trade and investment policies and environmental policies, and promote sustainable development; Second, it is necessary to realize green production, develop green trade, produce and manufacture in accordance with international advanced environmental protection standards, obtain certification of green products such as energy saving and low carbon, and strictly control the import and export of products with high pollution and high energy consumption; Third, we should promote green investment, set up a red line for the introduction of foreign capital, strictly prohibit the introduction of high energy consumption and high pollution industries, and adhere to green development in foreign investment, so as to promote green and low-carbon infrastructure construction and investment.

Overall development and security are increasingly important

The "fourteenth five year plan" and the 2035 long-term goal Outline take "overall development and security" as an important part of the guiding ideology of economic and social development during the "fourteenth five year plan" period, and put forward "strengthening economic security risk early warning, prevention and control mechanism and capacity-building, realizing safety and control of key industries, infrastructure, strategic resources, major science and technology and other key fields, and striving to improve the quality of food, energy, environmental protection, etc This puts forward new requirements for the better development of China's foreign trade.

In the future, China will open wider, wider and deeper to the outside world, and build a new open economic system with a higher level. It is bound to face all kinds of predictable and unpredictable risks and challenges. In this regard, we must establish a bottom line thinking, and coordinate development and security.

Specifically, it is necessary to establish a global supply chain risk early warning system for important resources and products, strengthen cooperation in international supply chain security, make real efforts in international industrial security cooperation, and promote the diversification of industrial chain supply chain; We should improve the early warning system of industrial damage, enrich policy tools such as trade adjustment assistance and trade relief, and properly deal with economic and trade frictions; One belt, one road, is to improve the system of foreign investment, national security review, national technology safety management list, unreliable entity list, etc., and constantly improve the classification and classification system of overseas classification, and build a system for protecting overseas interests and risk warning and improving the risk prevention and control system and security system of "one belt and one road". It is necessary to accelerate the basic legislation on data security and personal information protection, improve the data classification and hierarchical protection system applicable to the big data environment, and build an international coordination and cooperation mechanism and a global network security guarantee cooperation mechanism to protect data elements, deal with network security incidents, and combat network crimes; It is necessary to strengthen the early warning, prevention and control mechanism and capacity-building of economic security risks, and strive to improve the security development capacity of grain, energy, finance and other fields.

The international economic governance system and structure are facing adjustment

The world trade organization plays an important role in practicing the multilateral trade system, promoting the development of international trade, promoting world economic growth and sustainable development. However, it should also be noted that because the existing trade rules are difficult to adapt to the profound impact of digital technology on international trade, the world trade organization is facing multiple reform tasks, such as reshaping rules, improving dispute settlement mechanism, and strengthening supervision and implementation mechanism.

China is a big trading country and the largest developing country in the world. At the critical moment when the international economic governance system and governance structure are facing major adjustments, we should actively participate in the WTO reform, maintain the multilateral trade system, promote the liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment, and promote the development of the global governance system in a more just and reasonable direction; It is necessary to promote the development agenda negotiations of WTO, firmly safeguard the status of developing members, safeguard the legitimate development rights and interests of developing countries, and enhance the representation and voice of developing countries in global economic governance; We should participate in the negotiation of new rules of Digital Trade and service trade such as cross-border e-commerce, speed up the construction of an open world economy, and win the initiative for the high-quality development of China's foreign trade.

(source: China Economic Daily: China Academy of Social Sciences Xi Jinping, researcher of the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, research fellow, Zhao Jin, researcher of the Institute of financial strategy)