Data from the Ministry of Commerce show that from January to February, my country’s total foreign trade import and export volume was 4.12 trillion yuan, a decrease of 9.6% compared with the same period last year. Among them, exports were 2.04 trillion yuan, showing a double-digit decline. The spread of overseas epidemics has caused many countries to adopt strict prevention and control measures, and has also put domestic foreign trade companies under tremendous pressure.
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“The epidemic caught up in the first and second half, and all orders were canceled after the end of April.”
It’s not complete yet After recovering from the impact of the domestic epidemic, Zhao Peng’s (pseudonym) company was hit head-on by the overseas epidemic.
Zhao Peng is a large clothing manufacturer in Yiwu. During the domestic epidemic, many of his company’s factories were suspended, and the turnover of hundreds of offline direct stores was almost zero. At the same time, the company has to pay costs of more than 10 million yuan every month. “More than 2,000 employees have to be paid the basic salary every month, as well as bank interest and other basic expenses,” Zhao Peng said.
Beginning in mid-February, as the domestic epidemic prevention and control situation improved, Zhao Peng’s company began the long-awaited resumption of work, although the process was slow—— First, the Yiwu Municipal Government set up nearly 40 work resumption working groups and went to various parts of the country to help company employees return to factories. At the same time, they actively helped companies connect with financial institutions to reduce credit rates and interest during the epidemic. Then the company overcame the problem of poor industrial chain, and the production line finally gradually recovered. At the same time, the company’s offline direct stores have been opened one after another, selling high-end underwear and other products produced by the company.
The domestic epidemic prevention and control has not been completely lifted, and the sales situation of domestic offline stores has not improved significantly. “March is originally the company’s best domestic sales month of the year, especially on Women’s Day. In previous years, the company’s national sales in one day were around 12 million yuan. However, this year’s sales on Women’s Day were only 2.15 million yuan, of which more than 1 million The sales of RMB 100,000 are still derived from the store shopping guide’s recommendations to old customers through WeChat and other methods. In other words, the actual sales of directly-operated stores are only more than 1 million yuan, which is one-tenth of the sales in previous years.” Zhao Peng said.
Zhao Peng believes that with the improvement of domestic epidemic prevention and control, the difficult days are about to be over. “Our original judgment is that the company’s three-month loss period is about to be over. The domestic market will recover in two months, and the turning point of the company’s production and sales is about to come.”
But the large-scale outbreak of overseas epidemics broke Zhao Peng’s expectations.
Around mid-March, as the epidemic situation in Europe and the United States became severe, many well-known sportswear brands such as Adidas and Nike announced the closure of many stores in Europe and the United States. According to a recent report by Bloomberg, the U.S. retail industry closed more than 47,000 stores within a week, and at least 90 national retailers were temporarily in the red.
In the wave of overseas store closures, Chinese suppliers thousands of miles away have also felt the impact of the epidemic.
As a supplier to many well-known foreign sportswear offline stores such as Adidas, Puma, and Decathlon, Zhao Peng’s products are sold to more than 20 countries in Europe and the United States. In addition, the company also supplies products to large European and American supermarkets such as Costco, Lidl, and KIK.
“Basically all the European and American offline sportswear stores and large supermarkets we supply have suspended operations.” Before fully recovering from the impact of the domestic epidemic, Zhao Peng began to close Information about order cancellations by overseas customers. “Except for April orders that are currently being produced by the factory, all orders that have been placed but have not been produced, or orders that customers are preparing to place, have been cancelled. These canceled orders are basically autumn and winter orders, accounting for The company received 70% of its export orders. It can be said that the company basically has no orders after April.” Before being interviewed by the Beijing News on March 24, Zhao Peng had just received a call from a customer from the United States. The other party asked that orders that were being produced also be stopped.
“Our company’s domestic and overseas business accounts for half each. We caught up in the first and second half of the epidemic. Looking at it now, the company is expected to lose more than 50 million in the first quarter.” Zhao Peng said.
Cancellation of foreign trade orders is a common dilemma in the textile industry recently. Zhao Peng’s company also supplies raw materials to hundreds of garment factories. He has recently begun to receive calls from downstream factories asking to stop supplying goods, “because these garment factories have recently received notices of refunds from the European and American markets.”
Zhao Peng estimates that it will take 4 to 5 months for the epidemic in Europe and the United States to be effectively controlled. “Among the garment factories that focus on foreign trade, 80% of them can survive until the end of April at most. It is estimated that many companies will start to suspend production or lay off employees from April.”
Amazon’s adjustment of warehousing necessities
On March 28, Beijing time, Amazon officially announced that based on the announcement on March 17, on April 5 From now on, US FBA warehouses will still give priority to receiving and processing essential commodities, and more commodities will be included in the list of essential commodities.
Sellers can check which products meet the delivery requirements on the “Restock Inventory Page” and “Restock Report” pages in the backend.
Amazon also stated that when determining whether a product meets the requirements,�� billion yuan, a decrease of 15.9%; the trade deficit was 42.59 billion yuan, compared with a surplus of 293.48 billion yuan in the same period last year.
The impact of overseas epidemics is pouring back, and companies are under obvious pressure, and the export situation is not optimistic. Since the outbreak of the domestic epidemic, relevant departments have issued a number of policies.
On March 19, the General Office of the Ministry of Commerce and the General Office of the Ministry of Finance issued the “Notice on Making Good Use of Special Funds for Foreign Trade to Support Stabilizing Foreign Trade, Stabilizing Foreign Investment and Promoting Consumption” which clarified that foreign trade Special funds for economic and trade development should be given to foreign economic and trade fields that have been greatly affected by the epidemic, and support for small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises should be increased; support should be given to the construction of investment attraction platforms for opening up to the outside world and the rolling development of “small groups” in border and cross-cooperation zones; support The central, western and northeastern regions undertake processing trade, etc.
“Many policies issued by relevant departments are necessary, but some policies must be adjusted in time as the situation changes.” World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Yao Zhizhong, deputy director of the institute, believes that the current problem facing foreign trade companies is the sharp decrease in external demand, and this trend will not be reversed in the short term. Under this situation, some of the policies previously introduced have lost their grip. “For example, now that enterprises have no exports and do not have enough turnover, traditional policies such as tax cuts and fee reductions will not be able to work effectively.”</p
