Under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, the current situation of pandemic prevention and control has undergone positive changes, once again highlighting the remarkable advantages of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics. However, the tasks of coordinating epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development remain arduous. How to properly assess the impact of the outbreak on China's economy? How to face the difficulties and achieve this year's socio-economic goals? How to understand the superiority of the socialism system highlighted in the fight against the pandemic? How to respond to the obvious shortcomings exposed in the major epidemic prevention and control mechanism and the public health emergency management system? Have we learned any lessons from the experience?

"What can CPPCC members do to scientifically guide expectations?" This newspaper, from today on, will start a special column featuring "joint insights for a double victory", hosting exclusive interviews with CPPCC members to gather suggestions and insights to succeed in both controlling the pandemic and achieving socio-economic growth.

In the context of economic globalization, the borderless pandemic brings new challenges to the international economic exchanges and trades. How should we view and respond to the fact that the link between Chinese and the global economy has been changed and that the linking methods are different? Gao Yan, member of the CPPCC National Committee, Chairperson and Party Group Secretary of CCPIT, talked with CPPCC reporter on this topic in an exclusive interview.

Global pandemic: foreign trade facing a grim and complex situation in the short term

Reporter: As we all know, China is the world's largest trading country, what is your insight on the impact of this outbreak on the relevant enterprises and industry development in China's foreign trade sector?

Gao Yan: Since the 2020 Spring Festival, some foreign trade enterprises, affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, have been experiencing difficulties including slow resumption to work, stagnation in logistics, hit on supply chains, blocked cross-border businesses and concentrated impact of the U.S. tariffs on Chinese products. China's foreign trade development is facing a complex and serious situation. In particular, the global spread of the epidemic poses a major challenge to the world economy and the WHO has characterized the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic. New variables occurred in international demand have increased the uncertainty that restricts the development of China's foreign trade. China's total foreign trade volume fell by 9.6% in the first two months of 2020, of which exports fell by double digits.

It is, however, important to recognize the improvement of China's anti-virus control situation. With governments at all levels issuing a series of policies and measures to stabilize foreign trade and actively helping enterprises to solve problems, we are seeing foreign trade enterprises across the country resume to work and production and witnessing a recovery of market order and confidence. There has been an increase in the foreign trade volume in February. Overall speaking, China's foreign trade is resilient, competitive and has great potential. The long-term promising development trend remains unchanged, featuring solid industrial chains, rapid development of new industries, and increased innovation and market development capacity for enterprises.

Multinationals remain bullish on the Chinese market: a safe haven for assets under the outbreak

Reporter: Stabilizing foreign investment is one of the priorities in our country. What impact do you think the outbreak will have on China's foreign investment this year?

Gao Yan: In recent years, China has been expanding its opening up and continuously optimizing the business environment, making itself the second largest FDI recipient in the world. Affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, business investment activities are limited, and more and more investors are choosing a wait-and-see approach. China’s actual utilized foreign investment tumbled 8.6 percent year-on-year in the first two months of 2020, including a 25.6% year-on-year decline in February. As the pandemic sweeping across the world, the global economy is under mounting downward pressure. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) recently released a report predicting that global foreign direct investment (FDI) will fall by 5 to 15 percent this year, with a possibility to plummet to its lowest level since the 2008 global financial crisis, as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. China faces an ever more serious situation in term of utilizing foreign capital on the international stage.

In the meantime, great growths in absorbing foreign investment are shown in the pilot free trade zones in regions including Hainan, Fujian and Zhejiang. Positive developments are seen in the inward investments from countries along the Belt and Road routes and from ASEAN countries. The outbreak has brought new investment opportunities to pharmaceutical research and development as well as manufacturing, artificial intelligence, big data, smart cities and other fields, and is expected to attract more foreign investment inflows. The current development of the outbreak may also prompt the capital and industries of the countries concerned to seek safer destinations, which may lead to further convergence of international industries in China. The heads of major international organizations such as John W.H. Denton, secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce, believe that China's ability to attract investment will not be affected by the outbreak in the long run. CCPIT has conducted a research on foreign-funded enterprises in China and found that these enterprises are generally optimistic about the development prospects of the Chinese market and remain confident in growing their businesses in China. A group of multinational companies are accelerating the pace of investment in China. On 13 March, the signing ceremony of the Starbucks China “Coffee Innovation Industrial Park” was held in Kunshan City in Jiangsu Province under the active promotion of CCPIT. Premier Li Keqiang sent a congratulatory letter for the project. The project is Starbucks' largest overseas productive investment. It also shows that multinationals remain bullish on the Chinese market.

General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed the need to implement the foreign investment law, provide a favorable environment for landmark foreign investment projects, expand the opening up of financial and other services to the world, and continue to optimize the business environment, enhancing the confidence of foreign investors in long-term investment and management. Premier Li Keqiang said at a recent State Council executive meeting that China's door will keep on opening wider at a faster pace after the outbreak. We believe that the impact of the pandemic on China's economy is temporary, external and controllable. China's market size is huge, with abundant human resources and well-equipped industries and complete infrastructure, the economic development has great resilience, potential and vitality, the long-term economic fundamentals remain positive and the internal upward trend will continue. Foreign investors maintain their confidence and strategies in investing and operating in China in the long run.

Stabilizing foreign investment and trade: what have we done, and what will we do?

Reporter: As China's largest trade and investment promotion agency, what measures are CCPIT taking to help enterprises to cope with the impact of the pandemic and stabilize foreign trade and investment?

Gao Yan: Since the COVID-19 outbreak, under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core and in accordance with the decisions and deployments of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, CCPIT has been leveraging its advantages as the bridge between the government and the companies, conducting internal and external communications, prioritizing the work of stabilizing foreign trade and investment, strengthening work on all fronts and contributing to the overall economic and social development.

First, enforce more investigations and research. To study the topic of the pandemic impact on foreign trade and foreign-funded enterprises, CCPIT has held more than 40 webinars for enterprises and experts to communicate online, carried out 6 large-scale online questionnaires, conducted in-depth research of more than 2000 enterprises nationwide, voiced the difficulties faced by enterprises, put forward targeted policy recommendations and provided effective services to contribute to the Party and government policy making.

Second, strengthen services for enterprises. CCPIT has led its regional offices to issue more than 6,000 force majeure certificates, covering a total contract value of more than 500 billion yuan. Online and telephone business consultation were conducted more than 1.3 million times. Over 200,000 enterprises received support to process their international commercial certificates online. CCPIT released a series of materials including, the prompt secret toolkits for foreign trade personnel to deal with the outbreak, enterprise pandemic prevention and control guide, preventive immigration control measures taken by other countries and regions, and supportive measures for enterprises blocked in overseas exhibitions. CCPIT carried out more than 150 online trainings on the topics of risk prevention, order saving and market stabilization, with more than 100,000 foreign trade practitioners participating. More support was given to enterprises to purchase scarce protective supplies and raw materials to help them resume to work and production.

Third, boost confidence and clarify doubts externally. CCPIT and the China Chamber of International Commerce have sent letters to their 186 counterparts in 100 countries and regions and made their voices heard in various forms, telling china's anti-virus stories and winning wide support. The heads of important international organizations such as the International Exhibition Bureau, the International Chamber of Commerce, the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property, the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the China-British Business Council, the Expo 2020 Dubai Bureau and more than 100 national business associations, trade promotion agencies and arbitration institutions have called and wrote to express their firm support and sincere admirations for China.

Reporter: Next, how will CCPIT leverage its advantages to stabilize foreign trade and investment?

Gao Yan: CCPIT will conscientiously implement the decisions and deployments of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, strengthen responsibility, take initiative, join forces with relevant departments, execute the ten action plans to deal with the impact of the pandemic to stabilize foreign trade and foreign investment, enhance the professionalization, specialization, refinement and the internationalization level of public services, strive to stabilize foreign trade and investment, and seize to achieve a double victory with two hands overcoming both challenges, so as to contribute to achieving this year's socio-economic development goals and ensuring the overall construction of a well-off society.

First, focus on stabilizing foreign trade. We will focus on building a digital exhibition service platform to provide enterprises with accurate matching services through big data analytics. We will continue to strengthen communication with international exhibitions and organizers to help enterprises and exhibition organizations who are unable to travel abroad due to the outbreak to reduce economic losses. CCPIT will help leading export businesses in electronics, automobiles, agricultural products and other sectors to perform their contracts, obtain orders and expand their markets. We will also help enterprises that provide medical protective supplies, especially high-tech portable products, to expand their export shares, and organize online and offline activities to assist domestic enterprises in finding overseas supply channels when their industrial and supply chains cannot be restored in the short term.

Second, attract and stabilize enterprises and help them to settle down. We will promptly reflect and promote the resolution of the reasonable demands of foreign-funded enterprises by holding a series of foreign enterprises webinars and dialogues between government and enterprises. CCPIT will allocate dedicated personnel for the key foreign chambers of commerce and more than 60 large foreign enterprises in China to establish a rapid response mechanism, build and run the "Invest China" website as soon as possible, strengthen the investment environment and project promotion, support local innovation and investment, organize online negotiations and online signings and vigorously promote the implementation of landmark foreign investment projects.

Third, strengthen full commercial legal services. We will further leverage the legal support platform and the hotlines to provide support for cross-border trade and investment, guide enterprises to effectively avoid risks and safeguard their rights and interests. CCPIT will strictly regulate the process of issuing force majeure certificates for enterprises that cannot perform their international contracts due to the outbreak. More measures will be taken including utilizing the green channel, reducing the ATA carnet processing time, handling intellectual property cases related to epidemic prevention and control efficiently and protecting enterprises’ IP innovation. In addition, CCIPIT will optimize the arbitration and mediation case handling procedures and implement online arbitration and mediation systems. Furthermore, CCPIT will comprehensively sort through the restrictive measures on China taken by other countries and regions, analyze their impact in depth and put forward suggestions for countermeasures.

Fourth, promote international cooperation in the fight against the pandemic. We will strengthen communication with our foreign counterparts and business communities, share information on the outbreak in a timely manner, work extensively to dispel relevant concerns and jointly control the spread of the pandemic and address the economic impact worldwide. We will seek to speak out through platforms including the G20 business activities to strengthen foreign communication and public diplomacy and boost the international business community's confidence in China's economic development.