On November 3, 2023, the conference of 2023 China Import Development Report and the "China Import Development Expert Seminar" were successfully held in Beijing Normal University.The report was jointly released by the BNU Business School and the China Academy of Education and Social Development. Wang Shoujun, Vice President of Beijing Normal University attended the meeting. Pei Changhong, Former Director of the Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Wang Xiaohong, Associate Director of Scientific Research Information Department, China Center for International Economic Exchanges; Cui Weijie, Vice President of the Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, Ministry of Commerce; Tang Yihong, Dean of School of International Economics and Trade, University of International Business and Economics; Professor Wang Xiaosong, School of Economics, Renmin University of China attended the meeting. Staff from People's Daily, Economic Daily, China Social Science Daily, International Business Daily, China Economic Times, China Trade News, Shanghai Securities News, People's Daily, Xinhuanet, Thepaper.cn, China Education Television and other media, as well as teachers and students from inside and outside the school also attended the meeting. Wei Hao, Director of the Department of International Economics and Trade, BNUBS, presided over the conference speech.

The scene

In his speech, Wang Shoujun expressed warm congratulations on the convening of this conference. He believes that the General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that openness is an important driving force for the progress of human civilization and the only way for the prosperity and development of the world, which points out the direction for the university's education and research work. In order to better serve the country's high-level opening to the outside world, Beijing Normal University has set up the Belt and Road School in Zhuhai Campus, focusing on training leaders and talents who know China and are friends with China, and the Bay Area International Business School, focusing on helping the rapid development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The "National Import Research Center" was established to focus on import research and continuously strengthen the function of serving the country. China's Import Development Report has been released for five consecutive years, and this year is the sixth year. The Report presents forward-looking and systematic views on major theoretical and practical issues in the development of import trade. The state proposes to enhance the internal power and reliability of the domestic great cycle, and improve the quality and level of the international cycle. But import trade is the key link and important hub connecting domestic cycle and international cycle, which directly affects the construction of our country's new development pattern.

Wang Shoujun, Vice President of Beijing Normal University, delivered a speech

Sun Zhijun, Secretary of the Party Committee of BNUBS, on behalf of BNUBS extended a warm welcome to the experts and scholars attending the meeting. He briefed the participants on the basic situation of the School. The discipline of World Economy is one of the first master's and doctor's degree granting disciplines in China. The faculty of the School actively participates in the consultation on major national policies and policies, and promotes the scientific research achievements to serve the development of the state, local governments and enterprises, which has a positive impact. Actively expanding imports is an important strategic deployment for China to promote a higher level of opening to the outside world and smooth the double domestic and international circulation, so studying the import development issue has important practical significance. This year marks the 45th anniversary of China's reform and opening up, as well as the 10th anniversary of the "Belt and Road Initiative". BNUBS would continue to rely on its research accumulation in the academic field, focus on important issues such as high-level opening to the outside world, and promote the development of the school and social development and discipline construction.

Sun Zhijun, Secretary of the Party Committee of BNUBS, delivered a speech

The report release and expert discussion session was chaired by Sun Zhijun.

When Wei Hao, a professor at BNUBS and director of the National Import Research Center, released the 2023 China Import Development Report, he pointed out that in order to serve the major strategy of actively expanding imports and major national activities of the China International Import Expo, the China Import Development Report was prepared. The report is the country's first comprehensive report on import trade, and has been released for six consecutive years (2018-2023) since the first China International Import Expo was held in 2018. The 2023 China Import Development Report mainly includes four parts: theme, industry, region and country, and city, and makes a systematic statistical analysis of China's import situation with a large number of micro-data. Among them, in the theme chapter, the focus on the import tariff, import dependence degree and other issues are studied; In the section of industry, the problems of consumer goods import, service trade import, high-tech product import, science and technology life product import, quality life product import, automobile product import are comprehensively investigated; In the regional and country section, China's import from the United States, from the European Union, from the "Belt and Road" countries along the import, as well as increasing imports from neighboring countries are analyzed. In the city section, the import experience of Shenzhen, Suzhou, Chengdu and other typical cities is summarized. In addition, the Report also released the "China Import Development Index 2022" and the "World Import Development Index 2022".

Wei Hao believed that at present, China has been the world's second largest importer for 14 consecutive years, but through international comparison, it is found that the per capita scale of China's imports is low, the import dependence is small, and the proportion of consumer goods imports is low, and China's imports have greater room for improvement.If China's per capita GDP will reach the level of moderately developed countries in 2035, China's total GDP is expected to reach $42 trillion in 2035, and if China's import dependence is about 20%, then China's annual import scale is expected to reach about $8.4 trillion in 2035.In the later period, China's policy of actively expanding imports has great room for adjustment. We should adjust the structure of imported goods, actively expand imports of consumer goods, and increase the proportion of imports of consumer goods, which is one of the directions of future policy adjustment.In the face of the current complex international economic and political environment, how to do a good job in import trade, ensure the high-quality development of the domestic economy, and handle the international political and economic relations is the work that needs to be attached great importance in the future.

Professor Wei Hao, BNUBS

\Pei Changhong, Former Director of the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out in his expert speech that since the reform and opening up, export trade has been a key area of international trade research. In recent years, with the change of the international economic situation, import trade, green trade, digital trade and other topics have gradually become the new direction of international trade research, and it is very important to study import trade. Later, Pei Changhong analyzed the positive effect of import trade on national economic development from the perspective of Marxist political economy theory. He stressed that actively expanding imports not only helps promote domestic technological progress, drive domestic consumption upgrading, and accelerate the construction of a unified national market, but also helps the world share China's development dividends, and plays a vital role in the economic development of China and the world. Finally, Pei Changhong pointed out that the relationship between imports and the national economy should be further studied.

Pei Changhong, Former Director of the Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

In his speech, Wang Xiaohong, Vice Minister of the Scientific Research Information Department of China International Economic Exchange Center, first affirmed the problem orientation of the 2023 China Import Development Report. It is believed that the Report has carried out detailed research on a number of topics, the content is comprehensive and systematic, and has great reference value for China's import trade policy formulation. Subsequently, Professor Wang Xiaohong stressed the importance of China's expansion of imports from both domestic and foreign perspectives. From an international perspective, China's expansion of imports provides broad opportunities for the rest of the world, which is conducive to the rest of the world to share China's big market and promote economic growth, thus maintaining China's international relations with other countries. From the perspective of China itself, on the one hand, expanding imports plays an irreplaceable role in building a new dual-cycle development pattern. The import of high-quality products and services is very necessary for the high-quality development of China's economy and the high-quality life of its people. On the other hand, expanding imports is also very important to accelerate the construction of a trade power, the construction of a trade power not only needs to continue to expand the scale of imports, but also to optimize the import structure, and increase the proportion of imports of consumer goods, especially high-end products. Finally, Wang Xiaohong believed that future research can investigate the import of technology, energy and resource products, agricultural products, digital services and other issues; At the same time, when analyzing the import tariff problem, China's current import tariff can be compared with CPTPP, so as to put forward feasible suggestions for China to join and benchmark CPTPP and other agreements.

Wang Xiaohong, Deputy Director of Scientific Research Information Department, China Center for International Economic Exchanges

Cui Weijie, vice president of the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, pointed out in his keynote speech that the policy orientation of the Ministry of Commerce on import trade has always been to actively expand imports, and relevant institutional arrangements include import trade innovation demonstration zones, import support policies for specific commodities, cross-border e-commerce policies and Hainan's outlying islands duty-free policies. He stressed that one of the key points of "promoting a high level of opening up to the outside world" proposed in the 20th report is to "rely on the advantages of China's ultra-large scale market and attract global resource elements with domestic recycling", which is linked to China's import problem. Therefore, from the perspective of the national requirements for promoting high-level opening up and the positioning of the CIIE, the research conclusions of the 2023 China Import Development Report are highly consistent with the national policy orientation, and can provide an important reference for the construction of China's new development pattern. He pointed out that the issues we can focus in the future are: import practice issues, such as free trade zones, free trade pilot zones and specific high-end consumer goods imports; The space and direction of policy adjustment on the scale of import trade and the structure of imported products; Digital trade and digital services trade issues.

Cui Weijie, Vice President of the Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, Ministry of Commerce

In her keynote speech, Tang Yihong, Dean of the School of International Economics and Trade of the University of International Business and Economics, first expressed high recognition to Professor Wei Hao's team for releasing the China Import Development Report for six consecutive years. Later, Professor Tang Yihong put forward suggestions on the related research of import issues based on her own research experience. In the international comparison of statistical data, it is necessary to emphasize the characteristics of China as a big country in terms of population size and market size, and pay special attention to the differences between various countries in terms of industrial structure and development model. It is necessary to pay attention to the balance of imports and exports, but also to take into account the balance of domestic and international cycles, and pay attention to the balance of production and supply of different kinds of products. She believed that the current situation of China's relatively high proportion of imports of intermediate goods and low proportion of imports of consumer goods actually reflects the unbalanced distribution of production and supply in China. Therefore, how to optimize the domestic supply structure and improve the efficiency of domestic economic operation by means of import is worth further study.

Tang Yihong, Dean of School of International Economics and Trade, University of International Business and Economics

In his keynote speech, Professor Wang Xiaosong, School of Economics, Renmin University of China, first affirmed the academic value of the 2023 China Import Development Report, and believed that the practice of horizontal comparison according to different income levels of countries rather than according to the conventional year comparison is worth learning from. Subsequently, he pointed out that intermediate goods and capital goods play an important role in the domestic and international double cycle and supply chain stability, so it is not only necessary to emphasize the import of consumer goods, but also pay attention to the import of intermediate goods and capital goods. Finally, he pointed out that China's import access should be more diversified, which would directly affect the scale and structure of imports.

Wang Xiaosong, Professor of economics at Renmin University of China

Finally, Wei Hao, chief editor of 2023 China Import Development Report, responded and thanked the participating experts for their opinions and suggestions on the report, expressed his gratitude to the school leaders and college leaders for their recognition and support of the report, and expressed his gratitude to the participating experts and media organizations.

China Import Development Report has become a brand report in the field of China's import trade, gained a greater academic reputation, produced a strong social influence and policy influence, is a landmark achievement of the series of research reports supported by BNUBS, and provides many valuable decision-making references for government departments. It has also made positive contributions to telling the story of China's imports well in the world and promoting a high level of opening-up.

Provided by Lu Ziwei

Edited by Wei Hao

Reviewed by Sun Zhijun