Promoting Innovative Development of Trade (Learning and Implementing the Spirit of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China)
The Proposal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Formulating the 15th Five Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, adopted at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, emphasizes the promotion of innovative trade development. We must study and understand carefully, and fully implement it.
1、 Fully recognize the significant importance of promoting innovative development in trade
During the 14th Five Year Plan period, China's foreign trade has made steady progress, the import and export structure has continued to optimize, and its position as a major trading nation has been further consolidated. The period of the 15th Five Year Plan is a crucial period for China to consolidate the foundation and fully exert its efforts to achieve socialist modernization, as well as to accelerate the transformation from a trading power to a trading powerhouse. Promoting innovative development in trade has significant and far-reaching implications for building a new system of higher-level open economy and promoting high-quality development through high-level openness.
（1） Innovative development in trade is an inherent requirement for comprehensively promoting high-quality development. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that high-quality development is the primary task of comprehensively building a socialist modernized country. Foreign trade is an important component of China's open economy and one of the "three pillars" driving economic growth. Foreign trade is closely related to production and daily life. In 2024, there were nearly 700000 foreign trade enterprises with import and export performance in China, directly and indirectly driving a large number of employment opportunities. Promoting innovative development in trade is conducive to expanding new space, cultivating new advantages, and enhancing new driving forces for the high-quality development of China's economy, helping the economy achieve effective improvement in quality and reasonable growth in quantity; It is conducive to better meeting the needs of domestic industrial upgrading and consumption upgrading, better leveraging the important role of foreign trade in stabilizing growth, promoting employment, and benefiting people's livelihoods, and continuously enhancing the sense of gain, happiness, and security of the people.
（2） Innovative development in trade is an important support for accelerating the construction of a new development pattern. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that building a new development pattern is an open domestic and international dual circulation, not a closed domestic single circulation. Trade, as a carrier of the flow of goods and factors, connects the domestic market on one end and the international market on the other, and is a key hub for facilitating the dual circulation of domestic and international markets. Promoting innovative development in trade is conducive to effectively leveraging the advantages of China's super large market and super strong supply capacity, better utilizing the resources of both domestic and international markets, helping to strengthen the domestic circulation, integrate into the international circulation at a higher level, achieve efficient connectivity and mutual promotion between the domestic and international markets, and firmly grasp the strategic initiative in open development.
（3） Innovative development in trade is an objective requirement for developing new quality productive forces. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out the need to expand high-level opening up to the outside world and create a favorable international environment for the development of new quality productive forces. At present, the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation represented by artificial intelligence is accelerating breakthroughs, profoundly promoting the improvement of production and circulation quality. New products, new business forms, and new models are emerging one after another, and international trade is showing a trend of digitization, greenization, and servitization. Promoting innovative development in trade, accelerating the construction of a foreign trade industry system and institutional mechanism that is compatible with the development of new quality productivity, is conducive to fully utilizing global innovation resources and achievements, providing factor guarantees for the development of new quality productivity, and fully utilizing the global market to provide more application scenarios and external space for the development of new quality productivity.
（4） Innovative development in trade is an active response to the evolution of the international economic and trade landscape. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that the current century long changes in the world are accelerating; China's development has entered a period where strategic opportunities and risks coexist, and uncertain and unpredictable factors increase. Currently, economic globalization is facing headwinds, unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise, and some countries are building "small courtyards and high walls" and trade barriers. The international economic cooperation and competition situation have undergone profound changes. As the world's second-largest economy, China has always stood on the right side of history, firmly upholding free trade and the multilateral trading system, actively adapting to changes, promoting innovative trade development in expanding independent opening up, and promoting cooperation and win-win through innovative trade development. This is conducive to promoting the construction of an open world economy and deepening the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.
2、 Grasp the basic requirements for promoting innovative development in trade
Promoting innovative development in trade is a daunting task and systematic project that must adhere to a systematic approach, coordinate and advance as a whole, and focus on handling several relationships in a coordinated manner.
（1） Coordinate the trade of goods and services. China has maintained its position as the world's largest trading nation in goods for eight consecutive years. With the advantages of its industrial chain and diversified market layout, the resilience of foreign trade has significantly improved. With the increasing proportion of the service industry in the global economy, service trade has become an important driving force for global economic and trade growth. In 2024, the total import and export volume of services in China has just exceeded 1 trillion US dollars, and the proportion of service trade in the total trade volume is relatively low and has a long-term deficit. There is huge room for future development. To promote innovative development of goods trade, further enhance the added value and technological content of export products, and continuously consolidate and improve international competitiveness; We also need to promote innovative development of service trade, improve the service trade promotion system, and create new growth poles for trade. To promote the integrated development and mutual promotion of goods trade and service trade.
（2） Coordinate the expansion of exports and imports. Export and import are the two wheels of trade development, jointly serving high-quality development and the overall opening up to the outside world. The two complement each other and are indispensable. We need to promote coordinated development and achieve a virtuous cycle. In recent years, China has promoted export transformation and upgrading, providing high-quality and cost-effective goods and services to the world, while continuously expanding market opening, actively expanding imports, and sharing market opportunities in China, becoming a major trading partner for more than 150 countries and regions around the world. We should continue to leverage our comparative advantages, promote innovative development in import and export trade, better meet domestic and international demands, and better play the role of China as the "world factory" and "world market".
（3） Coordinate traditional and emerging driving forces. With the accelerated construction of China's modern industrial system, new growth points in trade represented by the "new three types" continue to emerge, injecting new momentum into the development of foreign trade. We must adhere to the guidance of technological innovation, further enhance our international division of labor status, and accelerate our progress towards the high-end of the global value chain. The traditional foreign trade industry is still an important component of foreign trade, involving a large number of exports and employment, and cannot be simply withdrawn as a "low-end industry". We need to support the transformation and upgrading of traditional foreign trade industries, revitalize them, and promote the smooth transition of new and old development drivers. International market changes are the norm of trade development. While striving to stabilize traditional and existing markets, we should strengthen economic and trade cooperation with countries in the global South, expand emerging and incremental markets, and build a more balanced and diversified international market pattern.
（4） Coordinate trade cooperation and economic security. The higher the level of trade openness, the more important it is to balance development and security, and firmly maintain the bottom line of economic security. The stronger the ability to maintain economic security, the more confident the innovative development of trade will be. At present, the risks and uncertainties of the world economy are prominent, and traditional and non-traditional security threats are intertwined. China's expansion of trade openness faces many risks and challenges. We must resolutely implement the overall national security concept, strengthen bottom line thinking, enhance open supervision and risk prevention capabilities in expanding trade cooperation, ensure the smooth operation of the trade industry chain and supply chain, safeguard foreign-related economic security, and promote a positive interaction between high-level openness and high-level security.
3、 The main task of promoting innovative development in trade
During the 15th Five Year Plan period, China's foreign trade faces both numerous challenges and important opportunities. Innovative development is the key to overcoming challenges and winning opportunities. We must deeply study and implement the spirit of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, adhere to and strengthen the Party's comprehensive leadership over foreign trade work, adhere to the guidance of opening up, innovation driven, and reform breakthroughs, firmly promote innovative development of trade, further consolidate the foundation of the trade industry, strengthen the driving force of trade development, enhance the vitality of trade development, promote the improvement and efficiency of foreign trade, and accelerate the construction of a strong trading country.
（1） Optimize and upgrade the trade of goods. Further optimize the structure of trade products, market layout, and development models, and enhance the quality and efficiency of trade development.
Promote market diversification and integration of domestic and foreign trade. This is a key measure to enhance the resilience and security of trade development. We should deepen high-quality economic and trade cooperation to jointly build the "the Belt and Road", make full use of free trade agreements such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, consolidate and enhance trade cooperation with ASEAN countries and other neighboring countries, strengthen trade cooperation with Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and other regions, and create a closer, mutually beneficial and win-win regional industrial chain supply chain. Accelerate the integration reform of domestic and foreign trade, promote the connection of domestic and foreign trade laws and regulations, qualifications, standards, rules, credit systems, etc., deepen production and sales docking, brand docking, and channel docking, and help enterprises smoothly switch between domestic and international markets. Build a comprehensive service platform, cultivate high-quality enterprises that integrate domestic and foreign trade business, and support the integrated operation of domestic and foreign trade.
Expand intermediate goods trade and green trade. Developing intermediate goods trade and promoting international cooperation in industrial and supply chains. Green trade is an important direction for the future development of foreign trade and an important support for sustainable trade development. We need to accelerate the construction of a green trade system, promote the development of green and low-carbon standards for foreign trade products, and actively promote the trade of green and low-carbon products.
Promote balanced development of imports and exports. Optimize the export structure and accelerate the cultivation of new driving forces for foreign trade development. Actively expanding imports from countries around the world, adjusting import tariffs in a timely manner, optimizing import structure, expanding the import of high-quality consumer goods, accelerating the diversification of import sources such as food and energy resources, supporting the import of key equipment, technology, and components, and ensuring full chain import protection. Relax market access for foreign investment, guide investment in export-oriented industries, and better leverage the driving role of foreign investment in imports and exports.
（2） Vigorously develop service trade. Deepen the high-level opening up, deep level reform, and systematic innovation of service trade, promote the expansion of service trade scale, structural optimization, and competitiveness enhancement.
Encourage service exports. Enhance the international competitiveness of transportation and travel services, support the development of knowledge intensive services, encourage the export of traditional advantageous services such as Chinese culture, medicine, catering, and sports, and enhance the international service capabilities of professional service institutions. Establish a cross departmental service export promotion mechanism, improve the policy system of service trade, perfect policies and measures such as finance, taxation, and facilitation, and optimize the development environment of service exports. At the same time, we will expand the import of urgently needed productive services, as well as high-quality lifestyle services such as medical and health care, cultural and entertainment services domestically.
Improve the negative list management system for cross-border service trade. We will promote the orderly opening up of telecommunications, the Internet, education, culture, medical care and other fields. Optimize the supervision of cross-border flow of funds, technology, personnel, data and other factors, and promote efficient, convenient and safe flow. Better leverage the leading role of the Free Trade Pilot Zone and Hainan Free Trade Port, accelerate the construction of a national service trade innovation and development demonstration zone, actively connect with international high standard economic and trade rules, and carry out pilot and stress tests in expanding market access for service trade and improving the supervision of the entire service trade chain.
Improve the standardization level of service trade. Implement the Action Plan for Standardization of Trade in Services and accelerate the development of standards in the field of trade in services. Carry out internationalization of service trade standards and encourage the adoption of internationally recognized standards in areas where conditions permit. Improve the statistical monitoring system for trade in services, promote data exchange and information sharing among departments, and enhance the public service level of trade in services statistical data.
（3） Innovate and develop digital trade. Adhere to innovation and security as the foundation, expand openness and win-win cooperation, and promote the reform, innovation and development of digital trade.
Orderly expand the opening up of the digital field. Relax market access in the digital field. Establish an efficient, convenient, and secure cross-border data flow mechanism to promote and regulate the cross-border flow of data. Expand the carriers of digital trade platforms, establish national digital trade demonstration zones, and strengthen and optimize national digital service export bases. Actively participate in the formulation of international rules for digital trade, and create an open, fair, just, and non discriminatory digital development environment.
Support the development of key areas in digital trade. Actively develop digital product trade, strengthen innovation in digital application scenarios and models, and enhance the international competitiveness of digital products. Continuously optimizing digital service trade and accelerating the digital transformation of service outsourcing. Vigorously develop digital technology trade. Cultivate and strengthen digital trade operators, and build a digital industry cluster with international competitiveness.
（4） Optimize the foreign trade promotion system. Strengthen the coordination between trade policies and fiscal, financial, and industrial policies, and build a strong trading nation with institutional and policy support systems.
Enhance the functionality of the trade promotion platform. Optimize existing exhibitions and cultivate several internationally renowned and influential exhibitions. We will continue to hold China International Import Expo, China Import and Export Commodities Fair, China International Trade in Services Fair, Global Digital Trade Expo, China International Consumer Goods Expo, China International Investment and Trade Fair and other exhibitions, enrich and improve the functions of the exhibition, and enhance its attraction and international influence. Cultivate import trade promotion innovation demonstration zones, fully leveraging their leading role in promoting imports, service industries, and enhancing consumption.
Support the development of new formats and models such as cross-border e-commerce. Promote regulatory innovation in customs clearance, taxation, foreign exchange, etc., and create an institutional environment conducive to the healthy development of new business models and formats. Promote the construction of comprehensive pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce and encourage and guide diverse entities to build overseas warehouses. Support foreign trade enterprises to expand sales channels and cultivate independent brands through new formats and models such as cross-border e-commerce. Support the development of offshore trade and develop new offshore trade businesses in areas where conditions permit.
（5） Strengthen the trade risk prevention and control system. Strengthen bottom line thinking, prevent and resolve various risks in the trade field, weave a tight and secure open safety net, and resolutely safeguard China's development rights and interests.
Improve export control and security review mechanisms. Accelerate the improvement of the export control system, prudently and systematically manage items, strengthen precise licensing control and investigation and law enforcement, fully utilize the export control dialogue mechanism, and provide strong guarantees for the development of key industries in China. Improve the risk control mechanism for trade security and establish a sound national access assessment system for food, animals, plants, and their products exported to China.
Optimize the mechanism for responding to trade frictions. Establish and improve the mechanism for responding to foreign export control measures against China, and properly address unreasonable trade restrictions. Promote the formation of a multi-party collaborative trade friction response mechanism, give full play to the role of early warning system and legal service mechanism, improve the trade remedy system, and provide assistance and relief to key affected entities. Establish a sound legal and regulatory system for anti sanctions, anti intervention, and anti long arm jurisdiction.