Recently, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Implementation Opinions on Supporting Export Products to Domestic Sales", which put forward a series of targeted measures from the aspects of government guidance, implementation of the main body of enterprises and territorial responsibility of local governments, which can be described as the "key point" of exporting products to domestic sales.
The majority of foreign trade enterprises are no strangers to "exporting to domestic sales". Looking back on the development of China’s foreign trade, it is not uncommon to encourage foreign trade enterprises to export to domestic sales, especially in the years when foreign trade exports are cold. At that time, many enterprises mostly transferred their foreign trade receipts to the domestic market for sale.
However, under the background of the global epidemic spreading and the increasing uncertainties in the external demand market, supporting export products to domestic sales has added new connotations. Public opinion generally believes that the central government has made a comprehensive and accurate deployment of export products to domestic sales from the perspective of effectively helping foreign trade enterprises tide over the difficulties, which reflects the determination and confidence of the central government to promote epidemic prevention and control, economic and social development, and strive to stabilize the basic disk of foreign trade.
For most foreign trade enterprises accustomed to make-to-order production, it is not easy to export products to domestic market. They are faced with a series of new problems such as market access, product standards, channel construction and brand remodeling. In this regard, the state has provided a lot of support for the export to domestic sales by improving the degree of convenience, doing a good job in financing and insurance services, and making good use of special funds. However, some foreign trade enterprises lack the courage to take the initiative to "turn around" in the wait-and-see and anxiety, which is likely to miss valuable development opportunities.
Facts have proved that, under the impact of the epidemic, most of the foreign trade enterprises that turned exports to domestic sales quickly and walked on two legs in the international and domestic markets earlier can maintain a stable operation, and some even achieved contrarian growth. It should be said that the export products have a certain market base at present, and the central government has issued a series of support policies, so the export products are facing multiple benefits. The urgent task for foreign trade enterprises is to really make full efforts on the word "transfer".
To promote export products to domestic sales, we should actively promote foreign trade enterprises to change their development ideas. In recent years, great changes have taken place in the international economic and trade situation faced by China’s foreign trade enterprises. Under the circumstances that external demand fluctuates into a normal state and trade rules fluctuate, foreign trade enterprises must take the initiative to make changes. On the one hand, it is necessary to speed up the transformation and upgrading and improve the added value and competitiveness of export products; On the other hand, it is necessary to actively explore the domestic market, especially with the acceleration of the expansion and upgrading of the domestic consumer market, the export products will usher in a great market space for domestic sales. Of course, not all foreign trade enterprises should "turn inward". They should combine their own development reality, comprehensively measure the opportunity cost of exporting products to domestic sales, and make scientific decisions according to local conditions.
To promote export products to domestic sales, we should accelerate the transformation of production and marketing mode of foreign trade enterprises. In production, foreign trade enterprises should adjust and transform production lines in time according to domestic standards, and develop product types and styles suitable for the domestic market; In terms of sales, foreign trade enterprises should adapt to the trading rules such as access, channels and settlement in the domestic market as soon as possible and establish an organizational structure that meets the requirements of domestic sales. It is worth noting that the intellectual property rights of some foreign trade products in design and technology belong to foreign customers, so the relevant departments should strengthen the intellectual property guidance and services for foreign trade enterprises and do a good job in intellectual property authorization, patent application and trademark registration. In the long run, foreign trade enterprises should constantly innovate independently and win the market with more products with core competitiveness.
It should be pointed out that supporting export products to domestic sales cannot be simply understood as weakening exports, let alone giving up overseas markets. In this regard, the "Implementation Opinions on Supporting Export Products to Domestic Sales" emphasizes that enterprises are encouraged to expand the international market while supporting marketable export products to open up the domestic market. In other words, foreign trade enterprises still need to consolidate traditional overseas markets and effectively safeguard the stable operation of the supply chain of foreign trade industry chain when promoting the export products to domestic sales. (Gu Yang)