SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool used to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a product, enterprise, industry or area. It involves specifying the objective of the analysis object and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving that objective. By using the SWOT analysis, the author concluded that the strengths of Henan province in developing foreign trade include labor, industry and transportation advantages, adhering to opening up policy, having many customs special supervision zones; the weaknesses include the scale of foreign trade is small relative to the total economy, the export product structure is unreasonable, over-reliance on a single enterprise as well as the international competitiveness of the majority of enterprises is low; the opportunities include building Central Plains Economic Region, Zhengzhou City receiving several favorable policies for foreign trade development; the threats include weak external demand, trade protectionism and the appreciation of RMB.
