The Export Tax Rebate Adjustment Is Intensive And Effective. The Surplus Pressure Is Not Slow.

The effect of adjusting the export tax rebate policy began to appear in July, and the export growth of some commodities slowed down.

However, the overexpectation of the country's foreign trade surplus may push the relevant policies to readjust again.

Data released by the General Administration of Customs yesterday showed that the export volume of export tax rebates decreased by US $38 billion 300 million in September, an increase of 22.7%, an increase of 7.4 percentage points slower than that in 1~8 months, while the cancellation of export tax rebate increased from 22.7% yuan to 1 billion 360 million US dollars in September.

Since July 1st of this year, China has adjusted the export tax rebates for some commodities, involving a total of 2831 commodities, accounting for 37% of the total number of goods in the customs tariff, further abolished the export tax rebates for 553 items of "two high and one capital" products, and reduced the export tax rebate rate of 2268 items that are likely to cause trade friction, including clothing, shoes and hats, and some iron and steel products.

Huang Xiaoling, an economics professor at the University of foreign trade and economics, told reporters that the export tax rebate was drastically adjusted in September. The export enterprises took into account the direct increase in cost and had a huge impact on profits. Reducing exports was a relatively direct response.

She pointed out that the state's policy is not to reduce exports substantially, but to slow down the growth of products that have relatively large impact on resources.

According to customs statistics, the overall export growth of commodities involved in policy adjustment has dropped.

In the first half of September this year, the adjustment of the national policy involved $316 billion 750 million in merchandise export value, an increase of 29.3%, accounting for 36.1% of the total exports of the same period.

The policy adjustment in September involved US $39 billion 650 million in merchandise exports, an increase of 21.4% over the previous year, a 9.1 percentage point slower than the 1~8 month growth rate.

Huang Xiaoling believes that the current slowdown in exports of these commodities is less than 10 percentage points below the appropriate, and will stabilize, enterprises need some time to digest the impact of tax rebate adjustment on costs, unlikely to rebound in the near future, unless the international market related products demand and price rise again.

According to Goldman Sachs's forecasts for China's economy in 2007 and 2008, China's net exports will contribute 3.4% and 1.8% to economic growth this year and next year, and export commodities and services will be reduced from 19% to 16% in 2008.

At present, China's foreign trade figures for October have not yet been released, but the surplus in September was still high, reaching 23 billion 900 million US dollars.

Moreover, the trade surplus in the first 9 months has reached US $185 billion 650 million, more than 177 billion 500 million US dollars last year.

Experts pointed out that at present, the slowdown in export growth is only a product adjusted by the export tax rebate policy. Most of the other commodities still maintain a relatively high export trend. The surplus of the whole year may still be larger. In order to control the export scale and adjust the export structure, the adjustment of relevant policies is still possible.