Opinion

High-quality supply boosts China's confidence in stabilizing foreign trade

The 140th Canton Fair opened on October 14 in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. Over the 70 years since its founding, the Canton Fair has always grown in tandem with China's foreign trade and is widely regarded as its barometer. In the new era, the fair's focus is shifting from the scale of goods to the quality of supply. China's accumulated supply strengths in technology, green development, digitalization, and services in recent years have given the country a firmer footing for stabilizing foreign trade.

Stabilizing foreign trade calls for more innovation. At the Canton Fair, product categories such as consumer electronics, new energy storage, smart healthcare, and robots are drawing considerable attention, demonstrating that technology-driven products are more competitive in export markets. Latest data show that in the first three quarters, China's industrial robot industry accelerated its digital and intelligent transformation, with exports approaching 10 billion yuan, up 16.9 percent. Embedding technology into their products enables companies to attract both price-sensitive customers and those who prioritize performance and quality.

Stabilizing foreign trade requires a greener edge. With the energy transition accelerating, overseas buyers are placing greater emphasis on energy-efficient, low-carbon products. Green products account for 26 percent of the exhibits at this year's fair, a sign of the growing green advantages of Chinese companies and products. New energy vehicles, energy storage, and photovoltaics have long been in the spotlight, reflecting how Chinese supply has aligned with global green demand. Green and energy-efficient standards are now a prerequisite for entering mid-to-high-end procurement systems.

Stabilizing foreign trade demands smarter digitalization. This year's Canton Fair debuted 22 smart application scenarios and 16 AI-powered features, becoming the first exhibition in China's exhibition industry to offer hall-wide booth-level navigation and AR information display. This makes the fair smarter and reshapes foreign trade processes: buyers can locate booths and match products more efficiently, while companies can identify potential customers and follow up on leads more easily. Even small and medium-sized enterprises can use platform tools for global matching. Digital capability is becoming a must-have for all foreign trade players.

Policy

1. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council have issued a set of guidelines aimed at accelerating the development of new quality productive forces to bolster high-quality development. These guidelines outline 19 key measures in five areas, namely advancing scientific and technological innovation, deepening the integration of sci-tech and industrial innovation, innovating development approaches, promoting institutional and mechanism innovation, and improving mechanisms for talent development.

2. The Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration released an announcement to adjust export tax rebate policies for certain products on October 12. Starting April 1, 2027, the VAT export tax rebate rate for new energy vehicles will be lowered from 13 percent to 9 percent.

Data

1. According to the China Film Administration, the National Day holiday box office reached 1.165 billion yuan, with daily box-office revenue exceeding 100 million yuan for seven consecutive days.

2. China recorded 826 million domestic tourist trips during the seven-day National Day holiday, with tourism spending totaling 738.38 billion yuan (about 109.67 billion U.S. dollars). On a daily average basis, the number of domestic trips rose 6.3 percent from the eight-day National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday in 2025, while tourism spending increased 4.3 percent, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

3. China opened 15 new international air cargo routes in the first half of this year, adding 42 round-trip flights per week, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said. The construction of China's international air cargo network has continued to accelerate this year.

4. China's hydrogen energy industry has accelerated its development across the board this year. China now accounts for more than half of global hydrogen production capacity; the country's annual hydrogen output exceeds 39 million tons, ranking first in the world, and the total length of completed and planned hydrogen pipelines has surpassed 13,000 kilometers.

5. The number of major water conservancy projects that broke ground in the first three quarters of this year exceeded the total for the whole of last year. A total of 2,012 rural water supply projects have been completed this year. By the end of the year, China aims to raise the rural tap water coverage rate to 97 percent, according to the Ministry of Water Resources.

6. In the first three quarters of 2026, new energy vehicle (NEV) output and sales reached 12.483 million and 12.472 million units, respectively, both up by more than 10 percent year on year, and NEVs accounted for 53.6 percent of China's new car sales, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).

7. In the first three quarters of this year, the Export-Import Bank of China extended nearly 1 trillion yuan in new loans to the foreign trade sector, up 9 percent year on year, with nearly 40 percent channeled toward stabilizing foreign trade entities and industrial chains.

8. The latest statistics from the China Futures Association show that from January to September, the cumulative trading volume on China's futures market reached 8.384 billion lots, with a cumulative turnover of 738.54 trillion yuan, up 24.2 percent and 34.86 percent year on year respectively. The futures market has seen active trading, with its support for the real economy steadily strengthening.

9. The People's Bank of China released its financial statistics report for the first three quarters of 2026 on October 14. China's outstanding aggregate financing to the real economy stood at 468.17 trillion yuan at the end of September, up 7.1 percent year on year, according to the central bank.

10. Data released by the General Administration of Customs on October 14 show that in the first three quarters of this year, China's imports and exports of goods totaled 39.94 trillion yuan, up 18.8 percent year on year, maintaining strong growth momentum and injecting robust impetus into global economic and trade growth.

(Source: Economic Daily)