Opinion

China's Foreign Trade Gets Off to a Strong Start

Since the beginning of this year, despite a complex and severe external environment, China's foreign trade has gotten off to a strong and favorable start. Data released by the General Administration of Customs on April 14 shows that in the first quarter, China's total import and export value of trade in goods reached 11.84 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15 percent. Among this, exports amounted to 6.85 trillion yuan, up 11.9 percent, and imports reached 4.99 trillion yuan, up 19.6 percent. The rapid growth in China's foreign trade in the first quarter is primarily attributed to a solid foundation, robust vitality, and strong momentum.

A solid foundation is reflected in the stable progress of the overall volume and the diversified and stable markets. By the first quarter of this year, China's total imports and exports had remained above 10 trillion yuan for 12 consecutive quarters. In the first quarter, China's imports and exports with developed economies such as the EU maintained overall growth, while growth rates with ASEAN, Latin America, Africa, and other regions all exceeded double digits.

Robust vitality is evident in the booming activity of market entities and the distinctive strengths of regional development. In the first quarter, there were 618,000 enterprises engaged in import and export in China, of which over 540,000 were private enterprises, further solidifying their role as the mainstay of foreign trade. Foreign-funded enterprises, deeply rooted in China and serving the global market, saw exports and imports grow by 10.8 percent and 23 percent, respectively. State-owned enterprises continued to play a role in stabilizing supply chains, with imports increasing by 7.5 percent, accounting for 20.9 percent of total imports. During the same period, China's eastern, central-western, and northeastern regions fully leveraged their respective geographical advantages and industrial strengths, with import and export growth rates of 14.3 percent, 20.2 percent, and 4 percent, respectively. Major foreign trade provinces such as Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Shandong collectively contributed to over 60 percent of the increase in total imports and exports.

Strong momentum is demonstrated by the optimization and upgrading of export structures and the notable strengthening of import dynamics. In the first quarter, exports of storage components and central processing units grew by 39.1 percent year-on-year, while combined exports of power-related products such as power generation equipment, power transmission and transformation equipment, and energy storage equipment also achieved double-digit growth. Meanwhile, imports of high-tech products grew by 25.1 percent, and imports of bulk commodities and consumer goods maintained relatively strong growth.

Policy

1. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology stated that focusing on manufacturing and driven by application, it would release a batch of AI plus high-value scenarios, explore a set of typical applications, build a number of characteristic intelligent agents, provide a range of new intelligent terminals, develop a series of new standards, cultivate a group of industry application talents, and create a batch of high-quality enterprises, comprehensively promoting the deep integration of artificial intelligence and manufacturing.

2. China has rolled out new credit support measures to facilitate a solid start for high-quality commercial development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030), according to an announcement made public on April 14. The circular, jointly issued by the Ministry of Commerce and the Export-Import Bank of China (China EximBank), has outlined specific measures in three aspects, namely promoting innovative trade development, expanding two-way investment, and advancing high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.

Data

1. During the first quarter of this year, fixed-asset investment in the railway sector in China reached 137.9 billion yuan, expanding 5.1 percent year on year, according to China State Railway Group Co Ltd.

2. With an abundance of strong winds and long hours of sunlight, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region has generated a total of 38.1 billion kWh of clean electricity to other parts of China in the first quarter of this year, in the large-scale development and efficient utilization of new energy resources in the region.

3. The China-Shanghai Cooperation Organization Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area (SCODA) operated 253 China-Europe freight trains in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 2.43% year on year, carrying a total cargo weight exceeding 170,000 tons, up 3.10 percent year on year, according to Qingdao Customs. Both the number of train arrivals and departures and the cargo volume hit record highs for the same period.

4. China's social financing conditions are currently accommodative, with financial aggregates growing at a reasonable pace. The People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, said that the country's outstanding aggregate social financing stood at 456.46 trillion yuan by the end of March, marking a 7.9 percent year-on-year increase. The country's increment of aggregate social financing reached 14.83 trillion yuan in the first quarter of 2026, remaining at a relatively high level.

5. A new supercomputing cluster capable of handling the most demanding scientific AI tasks has gone live in China's Henan province on April 14, marking a major step forward in the country's push to integrate artificial intelligence with scientific research. The cluster, announced by Dawning Information Industry, also known as Sugon, consists of 60,000 specialized processors designed to accelerate AI calculations. It is currently operating at the national supercomputing internet core node in Zhengzhou.

6. Total freight volume transported in and out of Tibet via the Qinghai-Tibet Railway has exceeded 100 million tons as of April 13, 20 years after the railway's full operation, according to China Railway Qinghai-Tibet Group. Freight volume stood at only 361,000 tons in 2006 but climbed to 8.313 million tons by the end of 2025, representing an average annual growth rate of 18.0 percent.

7. China's futures market sees strong growth in the first quarter of this year, according to data from the China Futures Association. Total trading turnover rose 58.43 percent year on year to 256.71 trillion yuan trillion yuan, and the trading volume of the market reached 2.601 billion lots, up 40.64 percent from a year ago.

8. As of December 2025, China had recorded 1.099 billion online audiovisual users, a net increase of 7.76 million year on year, according to the annual report on China's internet audiovisual service development released during the 13th China Internet Audio & Video Convention in Chengdu, Sichuan province.

9. China's first 10,000-ton intelligent oceangoing vessel powered entirely by electricity, "Ningyuan Diankun", set sail from Ningbo-Zhoushan Port to Jiaxing Port in Zhejiang Province on April 15, officially entering commercial service. This marks the beginning of a new era of pure electric drive and intelligent navigation for China's coastal container shipping.

10. The 139th edition of the China Import and Export Fair, also known as the Canton Fair, opened on April 15 in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, with its exhibition space, number of booths and participating enterprises all reaching record highs. The fair covers 1.55 million square meters and features 75,700 booths and more than 32,000 participating enterprises, with around 3,900 first-time exhibitors. The fair is showcasing over 4.65 million products.

(Source: Economic Daily)