In the first quarter of this year, China’s total import and export value exceeded 11 trillion yuan, a record high for the same period in history.
As one of the world’s most important trade hubs, Shanghai’s foreign trade data is even more eye-catching: the total value of imports and exports reached 1.23 trillion yuan, a significant year-on-year increase of 21.9%, of which the monthly data in March exceeded 431 billion yuan, achieving a strong start with “record-setting quarterly and monthly records”.
At noon, four large shore cranes loaded on the ZPMC semi-submersible ship slowly left the dock and were transported to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
In the first quarter of this year, Zhenhua’s port machinery equipment has reached its peak in exports, with a total of 50 units of port machinery equipment shipped on 16 voyages, continuing to consolidate its world-leading position in the industry.
Yao Weifeng, deputy secretary of the party committee and executive general manager of Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Changxing Branch, said that the company’s shipment volume this year increased by 36% compared with the same period last year, of which overseas projects accounted for nearly 80%.
Since the beginning of this year, global maritime logistics and port transportation equipment are at the peak of delivery. Shanghai companies have accurately seized this window period by relying on their technology accumulation and delivery capabilities, and exports of ship-to-shore cranes have surged by nearly 100%.
Based on the impressive export data of high-end equipment, Shanghai’s imports and exports have increased year-on-year for 14 consecutive months. Moreover, against the background of severe fluctuations in international energy prices, exports of the “three new items” have doubled.
Qu Huili, director of the Statistical Analysis Department of Shanghai Customs, took the star product electric vehicles as an example and said that in the first quarter of this year, Shanghai’s total export value reached 37.89 billion yuan, a year-on-year surge of 1.35 times, and the scale in a single quarter hit a record high.
A total of 245,000 electric vehicles were exported in the first quarter, which is equivalent to 2,700 electric vehicles being shipped from Shanghai to various parts of the world every day.
The resilience of Shanghai’s foreign trade also comes from the efficiency advantage of collaboration across the entire industry chain.
On a leading smart supply chain platform in the vertical field of industrial parts in Shanghai, a head robot company sent an urgent inquiry to know if there is any company that can produce robot processing parts.
Behind this message on the customer service staff’s computer is the customer’s ultimate requirement for delivery cycle – the traditional process can often take several weeks, which cannot keep up with the production schedule.
Xu Xiang, co-founder and vice president of the company, said that the iteration speed of intelligent robots has reached 24 hours, and some samples have to be obtained.
“We use digital methods to quickly find matching suppliers based on their needs, and complete quotations and even delivery within 24 hours.”
Thanks to this collaborative efficiency, smart products grew explosively in the first quarter.
Qu Huili, director of the Statistical Analysis Department of Shanghai Customs, said that especially in terms of exports, including energy storage equipment, transformers, wires and cables, etc., these are products that provide effective support for AI computing power.
Products in this category have shown exponential growth, and the growth rate is very obvious.
In terms of market layout, Shanghai Foreign Trade’s circle of friends has also expanded wider and wider.
In the first quarter, Shanghai achieved growth with 126 countries and regions, with growth exceeding 30% for developed markets such as the European Union, Japan, and South Korea, and growth exceeding 16% for emerging markets such as ASEAN, Latin America, and Africa.
For Shanghai Foreign Trade, the “quarterly and monthly double crown” is not only a historical high, but may also be just a new starting point.
At a time when the global trade pattern is being deeply restructured, this “hard-core” report card sends a clear signal. When the global supply chain fragmentation trend intensifies, this “whole industry chain + rapid response” capability has become Shanghai’s core competitiveness that is difficult to replace.
