The past March was the busiest 31 days for Zhu Xuefeng, who has been engaged in the foreign trade industry for 15 years.
Receive emails and phone calls from foreign customers requesting cancellation or suspension of orders, and respond to repeated requests from domestic suppliers. Collection…
The global COVID-19 epidemic continues to spread, and at least 50 countries have entered a state of emergency. Many countries have closed land and sea border ports, and cargo flights and cargo loading and unloading at ports must be approved. Risks for foreign trade companies have increased sharply.
In addition to the government’s assistance, foreign traders who, like Zhu Xuefeng, wanted the company to survive, started a self-rescue operation.
Ten or twenty collection calls every day
“Compared with last year Compared with the same period, it decreased by 70 to 80%.” Jiangsu fabric exporter Zhu Xuefeng’s order volume dropped sharply in March. Previously, his finished fabrics were exported to garment factories in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan and other countries.
There are also orders that have been received that have been canceled or suspended at the request of foreign customers. It is more “terrible” to be asked to cancel an order before the fabric is processed halfway than to cancel an order before production has started.
“The costs and various expenses that have been incurred have all been wasted.” Zhu Xuefeng said that payment will not be made until a 90-day account period has passed after foreign customers sign the order. During this period, Zhu Xuefeng needed to advance funds to cooperate with suppliers of semi-finished fabrics to turn the raw fabric into finished products for export, and there was an accounting period of about 30 days between them and the suppliers.
“Once the chain on the customer’s side is broken, there will be a chain reaction on my side.” Zhu Xuefeng said that some orders have already moved from the raw fabric to the dyeing stage, and the customer suddenly canceled it. orders and face high losses themselves. It is estimated that there are currently about 8 million yuan of orders in which similar situations have occurred, which means that Zhu Xuefeng has to pay 2.4 million yuan in supplier payments.
“I have been busy borrowing money and loans from everywhere these days.” The reporter’s interview with Zhu Xuefeng was postponed twice. “From the end of the month to the beginning of the month, suppliers will come to collect payment, one to twenty a day. phone call”.
Zhu Xuefeng told reporters that in the industry, whether the money owed to suppliers will be paid is generally determined by the “strength” and “integrity” of the trading company.
“If you are strong and honest, you can give it to yourself. If you are not strong and honest, you may fail and the money will not be given. We belong to I have good integrity and want to continue in this industry. Now I borrow money from relatives and friends and use house loans.”
In addition, some customers also asked Zhu Xuefeng to transfer their original The volume of goods signed was “cut in half”. The spread of the international epidemic has added a layer of uncertainty to “suspended production” orders. Customers cannot give a definite time for restarting production, and trading companies and factories can only wait. For the clothing industry that pays attention to seasonality and fashion trends, it is even worse. “It is unknown whether customers will use these products in the next quarter.”
In two weeks, from frantic order reminders to order suspension
Recalling what he has experienced these days, Zhu Xuefeng lamented that the epidemic developed “too fast”, and foreign trade The influence of the industry is “too large” and the radiation area is “too wide”.
It took only two weeks from the crazy order reminder to the suspension of orders. Zhu Xuefeng did not expect that the reversal would come so quickly.
On March 10, he received an order from a British customer. Zhu Xuefeng felt uncertain and was afraid that his order would be taken away, so he cautiously asked customers whether they had been affected by the epidemic.
“The customer said there would be no problem and would not cancel the order. He asked me to do it as soon as possible. The delivery was late and we had to claim for air freight. So we rushed as hard as we could.”
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On the 24th, the customer sent an email requesting “all suspensions.” At this time, the gray fabric has been colored, and the investment of more than 300,000 yuan has also flowed out the moment the machine pressed the “start” button.
Li Xiang, who has been engaged in export trade in Guangdong for 15 years, has the same feeling. He told reporters that the rise and fall of business is normal, and the impact on export trade in the past was mostly “gradual” “type”, such as trade wars between countries, anti-dumping policies, and exchange rate fluctuations, etc. However, the impact of this epidemic is “sudden” and “encountered for the first time.”
Li Xiang’s trading company mainly exports electronic and health products to European, American and Middle Eastern countries, such as the United States, India, Dubai, etc., with an annual export value of about 80 million. . During the Spring Festival, he went to Dubai and returned to China in mid-February. At that time, the epidemic had not spread around the world and his company’s orders had not yet been affected. But a week after returning home, “everything changed.”
Since resuming work on February 26, the company has focused mainly on coordinating orders for the year before factory production, and all orders for the second quarter have been suspended.
“What we have to do now is to ship out all the goods that can be shipped as quickly as possible, because we don’t know what will happen next.”
Li Xiang judged that the more serious impact will begin in April, “it is estimated that at least 60 to 70% of the performance will be affected.”
The global epidemic of the epidemic has also slowed down the overall development pace of foreign trade companies, and many companies are even unable to survive this “cold winter”.
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Relevant national departments and local governments are also paying attention to the plight of the foreign trade industry. Measures such as tax exemptions, emergency loans, and tax deferrals were adopted.
Data from the State Administration of Taxation shows that since the implementation of export tax refund facilitation and other measures on February 10, tax authorities across the country have processed export tax refunds worth 204 billion yuan for nearly 230,000 export companies. .
The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Transport issued an announcement stating that from 0:00 on March 1 to 24:00 on June 30, port construction fees for import and export goods will be exempted and reduced. Semi-imposed ship oil pollution damage compensation fund.
Some major foreign trade provinces have also joined in the assistance actions. For example, Zhejiang Province has introduced 10 support measures to help foreign trade companies overcome difficulties, including guiding foreign trade companies to make good use of preferential policies such as a 5 billion yuan emergency loan from the Export-Import Bank of China Zhejiang Branch and a 3-month interest exemption for 30 billion yuan loans from corporate banking institutions. Foreign trade companies that have difficulty reporting taxes due to the epidemic can handle deferred tax payments in accordance with the law. (Li Xiang is a pseudonym in the article)</p
