China's warming foreign trade boosts global economic recovery

A crude oil tanker is seen at Qingdao Port, Shandong province, China, April 21, 2019. [Reuters, File]

The booming orders at the beginning of 2023 mark a robust rebound in foreign trade in south China's Guangdong Province, a primary economic hub, injecting new impetus into the global economic recovery.

With eased epidemic controls and resumed international communication, particularly the economic and trade contacts, some factories in Huizhou City, Guangdong, are facing surging orders from overseas and a growing demand for industrial workers. Fierce competition to grab orders in the broad overseas markets is also in sight among Chinese enterprises.

The Guangdong One Nano Technology Co., Ltd. in Zhongkai High-tech Zone of Huizhou is now fully engaged in the spring recruitment and plans to double the size of its staff, following an increase of 279 per cent in its revenue in 2022 and a busy order schedule for various nanomaterials before the second quarter of 2023.

"We are highly confident and motivated. We want to get our business off to a good start in the first quarter and strive to increase our production value by 10 per cent this year," said Zhang Qian, general manager of Huizhou Macc Electronics Co., Ltd., which has sent a marketing team to visit clients for cooperation chances in the Middle East, Europe, the US and the Republic of Korea.

Overall, the economic operation saw a striking recovery trend as the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain strengthened and market expectations improved. Statistics show that Chinese enterprises have robust confidence and optimistic prospects.

The purchasing managers' index for China's manufacturing sector rose 3.1 per cent from the previous month to 50.1 per cent in January, while the new orders index rose seven percentage points to 50.9 per cent, according to a recent release by the service industry survey centre of the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

The outstanding performance is part of the efforts by Chinese enterprises regarding digital transformation and business format innovation.

Benefiting from the expansion of the intelligent manufacturing production lines and automatic assembly lines, as well as the update of the information managing system, Galanz, a Foshan-based home appliance manufacturer, has received rapidly growing foreign-trade orders for microwave ovens, toasters, and ovens and dishwashers.

Apart from production, enterprises also attach more importance to cross-border e-commerce, greatly facilitating their foreign trade business.

"Our salesmen were busy with orders received during the Spring Festival. The inquiries and orders on Alibaba.com over the holiday were higher than usual, totalling more than 3 million U.S. dollars," said Zhao Yunqi, general manager of Sunway Solar Co., Ltd., whose rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are distributed to the overseas warehouse upon production due to the burgeoning order number.

Cross-border e-commerce platforms like Alibaba.com have become an accelerator for new business formats to develop. The cross-border index on Alibaba.com shows that high-quality business opportunities in the new energy industry on the platform have increased by 92 per cent, making it an export highlight.

The platform also plans to launch 100 overseas digital exhibitions this year, together with 30,000 cross-border live broadcasts and 40 press conferences for new products in March.

Despite challenges such as the rising risk of global economic recession and slowing growth of overseas market demand, China's import and export potential and contribution to the world economy remain promising.