The export structure has undergone significant changes, and foreign traders are moving forward in the face of the wind

The cabin space on North American and European routes is currently in a state of shortage, and freight rates are also decreasing, "Wang Zhi, the head of a freight forwarding company in Shenzhen, told First Financial. From the perspective of the shipping market, except for the port congestion caused by typhoons on Southeast Asian routes, which resulted in short-term freight increases and sea freight congestion, most routes are in a" low season "of oversupply.

Feng Lin, Executive Director of the Macro Research and Development Department of Dongfang Jincheng, believes that the year-on-year export growth rate turned negative in October, partly due to the high base of the same period last year, and partly due to the fewer working days in October this year. Most importantly, the continued impact of high US tariffs on global trade and Chinese exports has led to an overall slowdown in external demand. Among them, China's exports to the United States continued to decline significantly in October, with a year-on-year decrease of 25.2%, which is not much different from the previous month, directly dragging down the overall export growth rate by 3.8 percentage points.

According to customs data, China's exports to the EU, Japan, ASEAN and the the Belt and Road economies grew at 0.9%, -5.7%, 11.0% and 2.8% respectively in October, 13.2, 7.5, 4.7 and 14.3 percentage points lower than that of the previous month, respectively. Excluding the base increase and workday effect of the previous year, China's export momentum to these regions weakened in October.

Advance demand from American buyers

Yang Chang, Chief Analyst of Zhongtai Securities Research Institute, pointed out that the year-on-year decline in exports to the United States narrowed in October, and non US exports are facing fluctuations. Since October, the Shanghai Export Container Freight Index (SCFI) and the Ningbo Export Container Freight Index have risen at the bottom. In terms of exports to the United States, the Ningbo East Coast and West Coast routes, as well as the Tianjin Port West Coast and East Coast routes, have all shown a bottom up trend, indicating that exports to the United States may be under repair. In terms of non US exports, for developed economies, the freight rates in regions such as Europe and Japan are relatively weak, while the freight rates in Australia and New Zealand show strong performance; For developing economies, strong freight rates are applied to regions such as ASEAN, the Middle East, and East Africa.

The early demand for Christmas season products from American buyers has made the "Foreign Trade 6.18" event on Alibaba International, a Chinese B2B cross-border e-commerce platform, almost a "Christmas stocking session".

Compared to general trade, the uncertainty brought about by tariff wars is driving Chinese enterprises to accelerate their layout of cross-border e-commerce and overseas warehouses, making the performance of these models relatively strong.

Wang Sijie, Vice President of Wan Yi Tong Group, which provides overseas warehouse services, believes that during the peak season in the fourth quarter of this year, the stocking volume of overseas merchants was relatively normal, and tariffs did not have a significant impact on shipment volume and profit margins. Most of the increased costs were passed on to American consumers through price adjustments.

At the same time, in addition to holding onto the US market, cross-border e-commerce companies have shifted their focus to Europe this year, which has also driven the vigorous development of related ecosystems in Europe.

The development of e-commerce in Europe is quite fast, and due to geopolitical issues in the United States, most e-commerce companies have shifted their focus to Europe. "Jiang Qing, the head of an international freight forwarding company that originally focused on North American routes, said that they have also begun to expand their routes to Europe and Southeast Asia this year and have achieved certain growth. However, he also has concerns that the EU may cancel the current tax-free policy for packages below 150 euros in the first quarter of next year, and it will be difficult to do so in the future.

Different industries have varying levels of warmth and coldness

Under the overall "coldness", there are differences in performance among different regions, and different industries are even more vastly different. This also forces small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises to seek market diversification while striving to explore new tracks.

Driven by the acceleration of "going global" by companies such as Pop Mart, the global trendy toy market is growing rapidly. According to Frost&Sullivan data, from 2015 to 2024, the global trendy toy market grew from $8.7 billion to $44.8 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of nearly 23%. Among them, the trendy toy markets in Europe, America, Japan, South Korea, and China have all grown rapidly.

Liu Mingyang told First Financial that although the current gap cannot withstand the decline in the main products, the company's newly developed categories such as trendy toys have achieved rapid growth this year, accounting for nearly 20% of the total business volume. Entering the IP gaming arena is not a temporary solution. They not only obtained partial IP authorization, but also built their own factories.

Ding Yandong, a foreign trade expert who exports intelligent sunshade roller shutter systems, believes that the market experience is good. We have been shipping cabinets for the past two months, which is pretty good, "he told First Financial. As of the end of October, this year's export volume has basically reached the level of last year's whole year. This also means that the orders for the last two months are additional increments for this year.

Looking at its growth drivers, Ding Yandong said that this year, on the basis of the Middle East, Africa and other regions, they have newly opened up large customers in the South American market, which has enabled small and micro enterprises like them to achieve significant growth.

They are also representatives of small and micro foreign trade enterprises that have been continuously investing in new equipment and expanding production capacity in recent years. In Ding Yandong's view, as his main market has never been the United States, the direct impact of tariffs is not significant. However, the issue of tariffs inevitably triggers more intense competition in non US markets. Therefore, their response is to develop new products and stay ahead of their peers as much as possible. At present, his focus is not only to cultivate stronger sales personnel and continuously explore new orders, but also to ensure that the newly invested production line achieves efficient delivery as soon as possible.

Che Yunwen, the General Manager of Foreign Trade at Wuxi Shuangzhen Needle Textile Crafts Co., Ltd., which produces pet beds, told First Financial that while Christmas orders are delivered ahead of schedule, their current production capacity is still saturated and they are "competing for delivery time every day".

Similar to Ding Yandong, their sales as of October this year have already exceeded the entire year of last year. Affected by high tariffs in the United States, they have maintained overall sales by adjusting their customer base, such as focusing on customers in the supermarket category. During the period of stable tariffs, the company has resumed communication with trademark customers and expects to increase some sales next year.

Li Junhua, a foreign trade expert in the field of packaging paper boxes, told First Financial that while their performance has remained stable due to conversion rates, a clear feeling is that profits have declined. "Even if old customers repeat orders, they still have to bargain. This highlights that the market "involution" caused by overcapacity in the industry has spread to more diverse fields with changes in the export market structure.

Luo Sheng, who mainly exports clothing and accessories to the African market, told First Financial that the export orders they received in October this year were relatively flat, but there has been some improvement recently, "better than the golden September and silver October", because November and December are the peak season for African customers to purchase.

According to customs data, the proportion of China's mechanical and electrical products in exports has exceeded 60%, and exports of integrated circuits and automobiles have maintained double-digit growth. In the first 10 months of this year, China's exports of mechanical and electrical products increased by 8.7%. Among them, integrated circuits increased by 24.7%, automobiles increased by 14.3%, and automatic data processing equipment and its components decreased by 0.7%. During the same period, the export of labor protection products decreased by 3%, accounting for 15.3% of China's total export value. Among them, clothing and clothing accessories decreased by 3%, textiles increased by 1.8%, plastic products decreased by 0.1%, and exports of agricultural products increased by 2%. Single month data shows that in October, China's chip exports increased by 26.9% year-on-year, and automobile exports increased by 34.0% year-on-year, both continuing the trend of double-digit growth.

Feng Lin believes that overall, the transformation and upgrading of domestic industries are providing new growth momentum for exports, effectively offsetting the impact of the recent decline in exports of traditional labor-intensive goods such as bags, toys, and clothing.