Foreign trade out of the sea is not a slogan, independent innovation is a corporate moat

(Observer newsletter text / Zhuang Yi edited / Zhang Guangkai) for foreign trade people, if the past is still thinking about expanding production and operation, the last 2 years the idea of more feet on the ground, the new crown epidemic, geopolitical conflict, logistics and shipping, overseas compliance tightened ...... any one of them is a bomb that makes the enterprise shock, the How to live healthy has become a top priority.

One side is the frequent destruction of foreign businessmen, the backlog of goods; one side is the obstruction of sales, people can not get out of the country, the order was Southeast Asia and other cheaper cost areas to snatch away. Last November, the total value of China's imports and exports fell 9.5% (the previous value of -0.4%), it seems that the industry winter has arrived.

But the struggle is our national background, the central work of the economic conference proposed to accelerate the construction of a new development pattern, focus on promoting high-quality development, and vigorously boost market confidence. In addition, we should make more efforts to promote foreign trade to stabilize the scale and optimize the structure, and make more efforts to promote foreign investment to stabilize the stock, expand the increase, and cultivate new growth points of international economic and trade cooperation.

Among them, both actively responding to the government's call for charter flights to the sea to grab orders for small and medium-sized enterprises, but also a large number of digital innovation as the background, focusing on technology research and development of the young team, wade out of the foreign trade to the sea of another way of life, not only not affected by the epidemic, and even orders to maintain the annual doubling.

They are the pioneers of China's foreign trade, but also the era of the sea wave rider, at the end of 2022, the epidemic policy optimization, foreign trade enterprises flocked to grab the order of the opportunity, we talked with some practitioners, record the epidemic in the face of the "life and death crisis" of the Chinese private enterprises.

Light industrial products trapped in the OEM

The end of the collective wave of the sea, dry 11 years of foreign trade OEM Hangzhou cool outdoor movement did not participate. "We have our own plan, 23 years to go where the exhibition has been set, the boss of these two years themselves will take business colleagues to visit customers in Europe." Tong Xuewei, head of the e-commerce department of Cool Moves Outdoor, said.

Cool outdoor main outdoor water underwater sports products, annual sales of more than 100 million yuan, in the industry is considered medium-sized. 2020, 2021 Europe and the United States water sports are prevalent, cool outdoor production of a large batch of products in a hurry, but 2022 then faced with stagnant sales crisis, "customers need to clear inventory".

Subject to the consumer popularity of the wind vane is only the first problem facing the cool outdoor, like inflatable boats, kayaks, the production threshold of such products is not high, Tong Xuewei also admitted that, compared with similar products abroad, less than the profit margin.

Customers and cool outdoor inflatable boat photo

Do independent brands will be a way out? Cool Moves Outdoor tried, and it didn't go well. Tong Xuewei said, on the one hand (operationally) limited energy, on the one hand, R & D and after-sales can not keep up, "such as after-sales need to have some local commissioners stationed in the equivalent of the global opening of the branch, to maintain the local market relations".

Considering the comprehensive comparison, the maintenance of OEM orders is still the primary task of the cool outdoor.

The same is to do foreign trade OEM products originated in Ningbo Saites Electrical Appliances Co., Ltd. as early as 2018 will try to transition to do their own brand of domestic sales, over the past ten years of production of heaters, fans and other OEM products are mainly sold in South Korea.

In 2018, the home appliance export base in Cixi City, Zhejiang Province, was included in the list of national foreign trade transformation and upgrading bases recognized by the Ministry of Commerce, general manager Huo Tongen told the Observer that there is policy support, the domestic consumption level has also been raised up, and the channel strategy of foreign trade + domestic sales can be implemented.

Despite the impact of the epidemic in recent years, the business of Saitex has remained stable, and this time he did not participate in the chartered flights to the sea, "the distribution of large road products to do less, avoiding the relatively competitive products," Huo Tongen said.

Zhou Dewen, a special researcher of the Zhejiang Provincial People's Government, deputy director of the Economic Committee of the Central Committee of the People's Progressive Party, vice president of the China Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, and chairman of the Shanghai Zhonghe Zhengdao Group, who has continuously led enterprises to participate in exhibitions abroad, told the Observer that, in fact, the end of the year, the organization of the enterprises concentrated on going to sea in order to enhance confidence, and the symbolic significance of a greater, "the main demonstration of the courage of the Chinese Private entrepreneurs to stand up to the tide of confidence", "how many orders to bring the second, the main action to the world to show that the Chinese are not afraid of difficulties".

2022 at the end of the year, he visited some of the private enterprises in Zhejiang, he y felt the epidemic under the enterprise wind control crisis, high indebtedness has become the cause of death of many enterprises. He revealed that by the impact of the international economic environment downturn, some foreign businessmen are not creditworthy, do not want to deposit, and directly destroy the contract.

Zhou Dewen to glasses business, for example, foreign business signed a 2-year contract, the domestic enterprises received the order immediately to organize the production, product production is ready to be delivered when the foreigners are directly destroyed, and now the goods can only be backlogged in the warehouse. "The company's main goal is to provide the best quality products and services to the customers, and to provide the best quality products and services to the customers.

Observers noted that in encouraging enterprises to expand foreign trade business and safeguards, China has noted the situation and introduced a series of policies, "the General Office of the State Council on the promotion of the development of the integration of domestic and foreign trade opinions" (hereinafter referred to as "Opinions"), pointed out that, to promote the improvement of the legal and regulatory system conducive to the integration of domestic and foreign trade, sorting out and promote the revision of laws, regulations, rules and regulations that hinder the integration of domestic and foreign trade.

In addition, the "Opinions" also put forward to strengthen the convergence with the standard rules of the international market, the construction of internal and external trade integration and development of the system of high ground, innovation of foreign trade cooperation mode, as well as to strengthen the financial support and other opinions.

With the gradual implementation of the Opinions in all provinces and municipalities across the country, it is believed that the situation of small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises will be greatly improved.

Innovative business to capture the market

"Frankly speaking, if we were not a Chinese company, the chances of doing smart manufacturing would be very small. The vast majority of the world's supply chain resources are now in China, and the Greater Bay Area in particular is rich in industrial chain resources, and this geographical advantage still exists." Chen Yongqiang, co-founder of Shadowstone Innovation, told Observer.

Shadowstone Innovation is a native Chinese enterprise, benefiting from technological innovation and the rise of the digital economy, technically filling the technical gaps in the field of domestic panoramic imaging, and obtaining 238 domestic and foreign authorized patents, has been awarded the national speciality, speciality and new key "small giants" enterprises, the national manufacturing industry single champion products, The company has also been awarded the first prize of Shenzhen Science Progress Award.

When asked if he has been affected by the industry chain transfer and technology blockade, Chen Yongqiang said no, focusing on technology research and development, product design and sales and other high-value industry links, as well as a supply chain center warehousing and logistics group, with product warehousing, shipping and delivery capabilities, so that Shadowstone innovation has enough self-confidence in capital.

The year 2022, which is characterized by huge changes in the external environment, is the year with the most new products for Shadowstone, with five new products launched consecutively, as well as creative ways to play with different forms and functions. As a young company, Shadowstone combines online and offline sales channels early on, with an independent website and retail platforms online, and offline cooperation with distributors in more than 60 countries around the world.

Shadowstone Insta360 panoramic camera

Chen Yongqiang introduced, at present, its main overseas customers from the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea, the product NPS (net recommendation value) year by year, the user generally evaluated the product "young", "creative". Creativity".

Chen Yongqiang is very optimistic about the performance of the new year, personal consumption market in the outdoor sports boost still has more room for development, is expected in 2025 China's outdoor sports industry will exceed 3 trillion yuan.

In addition from the industry market point of view, with the further development of VR and 5G technology, panoramic image technology and the integration of many industries, the digital economy, the new industry, the new mode of booming. For example, VR news reports, VR digital real estate modeling, street map collection, panoramic mapping, intelligent inspection and other fields, panoramic cameras will have a great wide range of development space.

Beyondsoft from Suzhou has also harvested a large number of overseas customers with its innovative technology products.

In 2009, five US-based doctors returned to China and founded Beyondsoft, whose main product is a washable air purifier, which has been sold to more than 70 countries around the world, including Japan, Germany, and the US, thanks to its innovative technology.

Dr. Zhang Yan, the co-founder of Beyondsoft, told the Observer that traditional air purifiers require regular cleaning and replacement of fans and filters due to passive adsorption, and that to address this pain point, Beyondsoft has developed a washable filter, which can be recycled and reused to save users a lot of money on consumables. In addition, the active killing method also makes the air purification effect better than the traditional mode.

Such environmentally friendly and innovative products are very popular with overseas customers, especially in hospitals and schools. Zhang Yan said that their products in China have a consumer record, but also through the U.S. ETL, Switzerland SGS and other eight certifications.

Photo of Italian customers with Beyondon products

Zhang Haiyun, Beyondon's overseas business leader, revealed that in the last three years, they have been able to keep doubling the amount of orders every year, and although they did not participate in the centralized sea activities at the end of the year, they already have a plan to go to the overseas exhibition in 2023. "We have a branch in the United States, the local market development are covered."

For latecomers, without a deep background, finding opportunities in a red sea is steeply more difficult. Unlike Shadowstone and Beyond's technological innovation, Zhao Yunqi, a 90-year-old from Anhui Province, has made a way in the new energy field with service innovation.

"Peers mention me, the most said is Zhao Yunqi crazy, right, 1000 U.S. dollars a single he also accept?" Zhao Yunqi knows very well that he has no choice.

Zhao Yunqi's first bucket of gold from the end of 2017, he clearly remembers is a 150,000 U.S. dollars of 200 kilowatts of solar energy system single, "we sell solar panels, providing Android program, not only the sale of the relationship, but also to provide customers with the installation of the guidance, cross-border shipping, the service to do in the inside, to provide a solution, not to sell the end of the end! ".

Hefei Shengwei technology solar panel installation project

Over the past three years, the new crown epidemic led to more purchasing habits from the offline to the online, which gave Zhao Yunqi's store to bring a huge amount of traffic, while at the same time the energy crisis in Europe in 2022 also gave the hibernation of China's new energy market to bring opportunities, said Zhao Yunqi, predicted 2022 full-year exports can do More than 4 billion, while this figure in 2021 only 140 million.

Innovation-driven development, in the shadow of the stone, Bayonne and Shengwei have a great embodiment of the 14th Five-Year Plan, to improve the market-oriented mechanism of technological innovation, to strengthen the status of the main body of enterprise innovation, and to promote various types of innovation elements to the enterprise agglomeration.

In recent years, innovative products and services have increasingly become the weight of foreign trade enterprises to break through, and China's resilience in the industry chain continues to play a role.

From the point of view of auto parts exports, China Association of Automobile Manufacturers collated data from the General Administration of Customs show that from January to October 2022, auto parts exports amounted to 76.59 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 11.7% year-on-year, accounting for 58.9% of the total exports of automotive goods. Alibaba International Station cross-border index shows that China in auto parts, technical content and cost-effective are gradually improving, and the Chinese market is full of products, quantity, can play the price advantage.

This confidence is also reflected in the part of China's industry due to cost factors transferred to India or Southeast Asian countries on the worry, Tianfeng Securities macro assistant researcher Guo Weiwei said in a previous interview with the Observer Network, if the "carbon tariffs" to Europe as a representative of the more common international trade barriers, in fact, it will be the cost of The cost will be restructured.

The layout of the global manufacturing industry chain depends on cost, security and stability, and the policies or political pressures of countries. According to Guo Weiwei, "the original cost may refer to labor, land, electricity, and now also consider the 'carbon cost', after all, India and other Southeast Asian countries production process is more crude, they also lack of "carbon tariffs" corresponding means of mitigation. "corresponding means of mitigation."

Guo Weiwei said, the western part of our country land costs, labor are cheaper, but also the most concentrated area of new energy development, the traditional sense of energy consumption is relatively high industry, especially the chemical industry, if you can change from flowing to Southeast Asian countries to flow to the western part of our country, is still conducive to our country's coordinated development of the region, but also conducive to continue to maintain the Our country's advantage of the whole industry chain.

Going global still needs to practice inner strength

13, the General Administration of Customs preliminary estimates 2022 cross-border e-commerce import and export 2.11 trillion yuan, an increase of 9.8%. Among them, exports 1.55 trillion yuan, an increase of 11.7%, imports 0.56 trillion yuan, an increase of 4.9%. In addition, the report "Digital Platforms Help SMEs Compete in the Global Supply Chain" predicts that the size of China's cross-border e-commerce B2B market will reach 13.9 trillion yuan in 2025.

This means that the potential of cross-border e-commerce still has considerable room for imagination. Landing on the specific operation, for these foreign trade enterprises, how to get out of the country, make a big impact?

Chen Yongqiang Shadowstone Innovation's experience of going overseas is summarized in three points: good products, localization and diversification.

A good product is the foundation of a company going overseas, no matter what market segment the product is positioned in, it needs to be supported by a good product;

Localization is the groundwork for entering a market, and it is also the place that many companies tend to overlook most. Chen Yongqiang said, for example, many companies do not pay enough attention to localization. For example, the official website copy, many companies think that only need to find a professional translation agency, but in fact the narrative logic and content itself is very important;

In addition, to do a truly global market can not be overly dependent on a single regional market or channel, the need to diversify the layout of the hedge against uncertainty.

Lu Gangliang, president of the Shunde Industrial Design Association, is optimistic about the future of manufacturing in China, but at the same time he told the Observer that there are two major issues to be resolved: intellectual property rights and advanced manufacturing.

"Some of our current technological innovations are still relying on the experience of developed countries in the past, and we hope that in the process of branding overseas there will be some completely independent innovations that are not stuck in the neck, and less technical and supply chain short boards." Lu Gangliang said, for example, we have enough advantages in the supply chain efficiency and cost scale, but now we use small appliances such as air conditioning, rice cookers are Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea invented the hope that the future in the material, electromechanical and other aspects of the underlying technological innovations, "so that the world can be used in the invention of the Chinese people".

Enterprises cultivate internal strength at the same time, Zhou Dewen also to the actual research situation calls for part of the economic difficulties of the enterprise also need the government and social organizations to give help, especially thin profits of the traditional enterprises, for them to look for business opportunities, "pull the enterprise a hand, they can get out of the plight of the reorganization of the business".

Alibaba international station with rich experience in the sea, Zhang Gao, president of the introduction, from the platform side, they provide a digitalization of enterprises to go to sea package, this year, also launched a digital mixing exhibition, real video reception, cross-border payment collection services, covering the United States, Europe, Japan and other more than ten important markets, for those who want to test the waters and save costs. SMEs who want to test the waters and save costs by providing agency programs.

Zhang Gao said that the recovery of consumer confidence will see results in a relatively quick cycle, although the current inventory of the entire North American retail is at an all-time high, the CPI is still rising, but shipping is returning from a seller's market to a buyer's market, "in October alone, the site active access to traffic has been raised by more than 20%. "

Observers noted that in recent years, the state has introduced a series of policies to develop global trade and cross-border e-commerce, and put forward development plans in regulating the development of the digital economy, expanding the comprehensive pilot zone of e-commerce, cross-border logistics, etc., which provide support for business operations.

At the same time, the Central Working Economic Conference at the end of the year emphasized the need to create a first-class business environment that is market-oriented, legalized, and internationalized, which means that there is a need for further refinement and improvement of current policy plans and implementation.

"'Putting in place' reforms have been effective, and enterprises have new expectations for long-term investment and layout after the quarantine," Jiang Xiaojuan, a member of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) and vice-chairman of the NPC Committee for Social Construction Professor at Tsinghua University symposium in early 2023 from the optimization of the business environment and the promotion of internal and external double cycle on two aspects of the proposal.

Jiang Xiaojuan proposed that the government continue to simplify the access procedures at the same time, pay more attention to the various types of enterprises to create a fair competition in the market environment; continue to introduce preferential policies at the same time, pay more attention to the construction of a stable and transparent and predictable legal environment; In addition, in the continuing to improve the domestic market resource allocation mechanism at the same time, pay more attention to the creation of the market allocation of cross-border resources, the internationalization of the environment.

Jiang Xiaojuan believes that China's "accession" to the WTO and the experience of four decades of openness fully demonstrates that the competitiveness of Chinese enterprises and Chinese industries often exceeds our expectations, and that they will be able to survive and develop under the pressure, and forge stronger competitiveness in the fierce competition. Currently China has joined or applied for membership in several high-standard trade systems, such as RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement), CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement) and DEPA (Digital Economy Partnership Agreement). Therefore, she suggested continuing to deepen the relevant domestic areas, while accelerating and speeding up the construction of a high-level market system and obtaining the recognition of the international community.

"China's huge domestic market, favorable development conditions, and institutional advantages brought about by the proper coordination of the two hands of the market and the government will be a great attraction to global investors and motivate them to start and develop businesses in China." Jiang Xiaojuan claimed.