Ministry of Commerce： Making Policy ＂Combination Boxing＂ and Striving to Stabilize the Basic Market of Foreign Investment and Foreign Trade

　　CCTV News:On April 10th, the State Council Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism held a press conference. Ren Hongbin, Assistant Minister of Commerce, and Li Xinggan, Director of Foreign Trade Department, introduced relevant measures to stabilize foreign trade and answered questions from reporters.

　　Ren Hongbin, Assistant Minister of Commerce, said that since the beginning of this year, affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, the development of foreign trade has faced severe challenges that have not been seen for many years. According to customs statistics, from January to February, China’s import and export, export and import decreased by 9.6%, 15.9% and 2.4% respectively in terms of RMB.

　　At present, the situation of domestic epidemic prevention and control continues to improve, and foreign trade enterprises have resumed their work and production in an orderly manner. However, the global epidemic has accelerated its spread, which has brought great impact on the global economy and trade. Judging from the recent investigation of key provinces and cities, import and export chambers of commerce and key enterprises by the Ministry of Commerce, foreign trade enterprises generally face many problems such as cancellation or postponement of orders in hand, difficulty in signing new orders, and poor logistics and transportation.

　　In the face of the severe foreign trade situation, the State Council timely introduced policies and measures to stabilize foreign trade. On March 10th, the the State Council executive meeting deliberated and adopted measures such as improving export tax rebate, increasing foreign trade credit and increasing export credit insurance support. On April 7th, the executive meeting of the State Council once again launched a series of policies to stabilize foreign trade, such as setting up a comprehensive cross-border e-commerce test zone, supporting the development of processing trade, holding an online Canton Fair, etc., and made a policy "combination boxing" to try to stabilize the basic foreign trade.