Recently, facing the challenges of slowing global trade growth and increasing external uncertainties, China's policies to stabilize foreign trade have continued to gain momentum. The Ministry of Commerce, General Administration of Customs, People's Bank of China and other departments jointly issued the Guiding Opinions on Further Strengthening the Work of Stabilizing Foreign Trade, introducing 12 specific measures in three categories—cross-border e-commerce expansion, customs clearance facilitation upgrading, and financial support—to precisely address the "pain points" of foreign trade enterprises and inject strong impetus into their expansion into international markets.

Cross-border E-commerce: Expanding Categories + Overseas Warehouse Support to Unleash Growth PotentialThe policy clearly states that it will further optimize the list of cross-border e-commerce retail import goods, adding more than 100 high-frequency consumer categories such as maternal and child products, home goods, and cosmetics to meet domestic consumers' demand for high-quality imported goods. At the same time, it supports enterprises in building overseas warehouses through "self-construction + cooperation" models, encouraging overseas warehouse enterprises to provide integrated services such as storage, sorting, and distribution to reduce cross-border logistics costs for enterprises. According to estimates, the overseas warehouse model can reduce enterprise logistics costs by 20%-30% and shorten delivery time by more than 50%, effectively improving consumer experience.

Customs Clearance Facilitation: Process Simplification + Technological Empowerment, Efficiency Greatly ImprovedIn response to the "slow customs clearance and complicated procedures" strongly reflected by enterprises, the policy introduces reform measures such as "advance declaration + two-step declaration" and "summary taxation + self-declaration and self-payment." Enterprises can submit declaration materials in advance before the goods arrive at the port, and after arrival, they only need to declare basic information to pick up the goods, and then supplement the complete data later, which is expected to shorten customs clearance time by 40%. At the same time, the construction of "smart customs" is promoted, using artificial intelligence, blockchain and other technologies to realize automatic review of customs declarations and real-time feedback of inspection results, further reducing manual intervention.

Financial Support: Credit Expansion + Risk Protection to Alleviate Capital PressureTo solve the problem of "difficult and expensive financing" for small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises, the policy encourages banks to set up "special credit lines for foreign trade enterprises" and interest rate preferences to qualified enterprises; expands the coverage of export credit insurance, increasing the underwriting scale of short-term export credit insurance to 1.5 trillion US dollars, focusing on supporting the export of emerging industries such as new energy and high-end manufacturing, and reducing the risk of foreign exchange collection for enterprises. In addition, it supports enterprises to avoid exchange rate risks through cross-border RMB settlement, with the scale of cross-border RMB settlement increasing by 15% year-on-year in the first half of 2025.

Enterprise Feedback: Policy "Timely Rain" Boosts ConfidenceThe person in charge of a cross-border e-commerce enterprise in Hangzhou said: "The new import categories are exactly in line with our expansion plan, and the overseas warehouse support policy gives us the confidence to increase our layout in the European market." The person in charge of an electronic components export enterprise in Shenzhen believes: "The improvement of customs clearance efficiency and the increase of financial support allow us to respond to customer needs faster, reduce operating costs, and enhance our competitiveness in the international market."

The intensive implementation of these measures to stabilize foreign trade reflects China's firm determination and support the development of foreign trade enterprises. As various measures gradually take effect, it is expected to help foreign trade enterprises achieve the goals of "reducing costs, improving efficiency, and expanding markets," laying a solid foundation for stable growth of foreign trade throughout the year.