China’s foreign trade value hit a record high in this year’s first two months, rising by 8.7% on year to Yuan 6.61 trillion, according to the latest release by the country’s General Administration of Customs (GACC) on Thursday. Within the total, the value of the country’s exports ticked up by 10.3% on year to Yuan 3.75 trillion, and that of imports gained by 6.7% on year to Yuan 2.86 trillion.
In US dollar terms, the total trade value saw an uptick of 5.5% on year to $930.8 billion over the same period, and the value for exports and imports rose by 7.1% and 3.5% respectively on year to reach $528 billion and $402.8 billion, the GACC data showed.
China’s top trade partner over January-February was the ASEAN region with the trade value standing at Yuan 993 billion, up 8.1% on year or accounting for 15% of the total trade value, according to the release. The European Union was the second largest at Yuan 832 billion, down 1.3% on year, and the U.S. ranked the third, with its trade value with China climbing by 3.7% on year to Yuan 708 billion, the GACC statistics found.
As for China’s trade with the “Belt and Road Initiative” countries, the combined value amounted to Yuan 3.13 trillion during the first two months, higher by 9% on year, according to GACC. Over January-February, privately-owned Chinese enterprises saw their foreign trade value swell by 17.7% on year to Yuan 3.61 trillion, and this represented 54.6% of the total, rising by 4.2 percentage points from the same period in 2023.
In parallel, foreign-invested firms in China posted a 1.7% on-year dip in trade value during the same period to Yuan 1.92 trillion, accounting for 29% of the total, GACC noted.
Among the major products China exported over the first two months, the total value of machinery, electrical products and electronics came in at Yuan 2.22 trillion, up 11.8% on year and contributing to 59.1% of the country’s total exports value, the official data show.
As for China’s imports of bulk commodities over January-February, iron ore, crude oil, coal and natural gas all posted on-year growth in volume, moving up by 8.1%, 5.1%, 22.9% and 23.6% respectively to 209 million tonnes, 88.3 million tonnes 74.5 million tonnes and 22.1 million tonnes, according to the Customs data.
Written by Rong Zhang
