China Q3 exports top 8 trillion yuan for first time, customs says
Mainland China's third-quarter exports surpassed 8 trillion yuan for the first time, up 22 per cent year on year, with first-three-quarter trade growth the fastest in five years. Customs officials forecast stable fundamentals for Q4 despite geopolitical and protectionist challenges.
Mainland China's third-quarter exports exceeded 8 trillion yuan for the first time, rising 22 per cent year on year, while total goods trade in the first three quarters reached 23.2 trillion yuan, up 16.4 per cent, according to official customs data released on Wednesday.
Wang Jun, spokesman and deputy head of the General Administration of Customs, said the first-three-quarter trade growth rate was the fastest for the same period in five years, with quarterly and monthly growth generally accelerating. He noted that China's trade expansion ranked among the fastest of major economies, and the country remained the world's largest trader of goods, adding that the strong performance had injected momentum into global trade growth.
Wang attributed the robust export growth to a complete industrial chain system and the continuous development of advanced manufacturing, which he said enabled precise, rapid and effective responses to global production and consumption demand while providing high-quality and stable supply. In the first three quarters, imports and exports of industrial robots, electronic components, computer parts and electrical equipment together exceeded 10 trillion yuan, up 58.9 per cent, contributing 11.3 percentage points to overall trade growth.
Looking ahead to the full year, Wang said the international environment still contained many unstable and unpredictable factors, with geopolitical conflicts continuing to disrupt global trade order and trade protectionism and unilateralism on the rise. He acknowledged that foreign trade still faced considerable challenges.
However, he said the world economy remained resilient, and China's advantages of a super-large market and a complete industrial system, combined with the coordinated effect of existing and incremental policies, provided a foundation and conditions for stable trade growth in the coming period.
On the fourth-quarter export outlook, Wang said the fundamental conditions for exports had not changed. He said China would accelerate the building of a modern industrial system with advanced manufacturing as the backbone, offering trading partners and global consumers a richer range of choices.