Market
Jun 14, 2017 ｜ by Shirley
On April 27 and May 11, the Ministry of Commerce held the regular press conference. Spokesman Sun Jiwen answered the hot issues that concern media at home and abroad. Here is the record:
Related Situation on the Second Batch of Hundreds of 10 billion Markets with Major Links
Commodity exchange market is an important channel and tie for the circulation of agricultural products, manufactured consumer goods and means of production. It links production to consumption. In 2016, there were about 4,900 commodity exchange markets valued over 100 million yuan in China, with the annual business value exceeding 10 trillion.
In 2015, the Ministry of Commerce guided local commercial departments to gradually build the link mechanism of hundreds of 10 billion major markets, carrying out classification guidance to the commodity exchange markets whose annual business volume are over 10 billion, speeding up resources integration, deepening industry integration, innovating business modes, and encouraging customized service, information application and platform development, satisfying the demands of consumption upgrading, diversification and individuation, promoting the quality of residents’ life, and playing a better guidance role to production.
In 2016, recommended by the provincial commercial departments and evaluated by some experts, Ministry of Commerce announced the first batch of 44 major link markets, whose business volume in 2016 was up 18.8% year on year, and the year-on-year growth ranges of business volume of e-commerce, foreign trade import and export volume and logistics volume were all about 30%. Recently, the Ministry of Commerce announced the second batch of 21 markets, all of which are backbone markets of China’s synthetic markets, agricultural products markets, manufactured consumer goods markets and production means markets. They enjoy good development foundation, and we believe that they will play the demonstration role in the transformation and upgrading progress of China’s commodity exchange markets, and will also play a driving role in deepening the supply-side structural reform of domestic trade circulation.
On Parallel Imports of Automobiles in January-April 2017
To carry out automobiles pilots of parallel imports is an important start to promote supply-side structural reform in auto circulation area. At present, the pilots have expanded to 9 provinces and cities (including cities with independent planning), a series of policies and measures have been issued to promote parallel imports of automobile and the pilot work has made good achievements.
Firstly, the diversified and multi-level vehicle consumer demand was better satisfied. Since the pilot was open, the parallel imported vehicles were 89,636, among which, the number of parallel imported vehicles in January-April 2017 were 26,970, an increase of 1.6 times. In 2016, the imported parallel vehicle models exceeded 140, 20 more than that of in 2015, improving the supply of the automobile market, effectively promoting the automobile market competition, and playing a positive role in guiding the prices of the imported vehicle and even the whole vehicle market to return to a reasonable level.
Secondly, a batch of duplicable experiences was formed. In January 2016, MOFCOM held a symposium of imported parallel pilot work of national vehicles in Shenzhen, summarizing the pilot experience of “one platform and four systems”, namely building the one-stop public service platform, international market procurement system, trade facilitation clearance system, after-sales service assurance system and government supervision and control information system. The “one platform and four systems” collectively embodies the experience of pilot and innovation of the pilot work, focuses on supply of goods, clearance, after sale and supervision these four key sessions, innovates the role of the third-party comprehensive service platform, supports small-and-medium-sized enterprises to carry out the relevant business of parallel import and has a strong significance on further carrying out pilot work.
Next, we will positively implement the deployment and requirements of the State Council on promoting the pilot of automobile parallel import, improve the policies and measures of the pilot, comprehensively summarize and assess the effects of the pilot, accelerate duplicating and promoting the pilot experience, and make greater contribution to expanding automobile consumption, maintaining the turnover and recovery of foreign trade, and promoting the steady economic development.
Q: It is reported the data of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) shows a 7% sale increase in the first quarter and an all-time high since 2014. This result goes far beyond expectation. What do you think of this development?
A: Car sales in China grew by 7% in the first quarter, slightly higher than the 5% forecast of CAAM. The main reason is that driven by growing demand on automobiles and bigger demand on commodity transportation services and greater number of infrastructure projects in particular, sales of commercial vehicles increased rapidly with a 22.9% year-on-year rate. In breakdown, truck sales grew by 30.1% year on year and were a big boost to the overall automobile sales.
At the same time we are also aware that passenger car, which takes 85% share of total automobile sales, grew by 4.6% year on year, slightly lower than expectation. Therefore automobile sale for the whole year will stabilize and slow down when the sale base in 2016 is already large as the result of fast increase and incentives such as preferential tax rate for buying smaller-engined vehicles go weaker.
In order to promote the sustained and healthy development of the automobile market, Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan signed the Decree No.1 of 2017 which issued the Administrative Measures for Automobile Sale. The Measures has attracted much attention. As automobile sale slows down, the Measures will facilitate competition, enhance efficiency, improve supply and promote product quality so that automobile consumption can play a bigger role in boosting domestic consumption.
Data source: Ministry of Commerce People’s Republic of China
