Review of China’s Foreign Trade in the First Quarter of 2024

( The Chinese version shall prevail. )

In the first quarter of 2024, under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core, China acts on the general principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability, fully and faithfully applies the new development philosophy on all fronts, speeds up building the new development paradigm, and promotes the solid progress of high-quality development with an overall upturn in economic performance, stable and improved foreign trade and imports and exports volume reaching a new high.

The details are as follows:

1. Imports and exports volume in the first quarter of 2024 surpassed RMB1 trillion for the first time compared with the same period of the previous years with its growth rate hitting a six-quarter high. According to Customs statistics, China’s foreign trade volume in goods in the first quarter of 2024 reached RMB10.17 trillion, up by 5% year-on-year. Exports grew by 4.9% to RMB5.74 trillion and imports increased by 5% to RMB4.43 trillion, 4.1 and 2.3 percentage points higher than the fourth quarter of 2023, respectively.

2. Imports and exports with Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) partner countries and other BRICS countries grew faster than the overall foreign trade. In the first quarter of 2024, China’s trade with BRI partner countries totaled RMB4.82 trillion, up by 5.5%, accounting for 47.4% of China’s total foreign trade, 0.2 percentage points higher year-on-year. China’s trade with ASEAN scored RMB1.6 trillion, up by 6.4% year-on-year. China’s trade with other nine BRICS countries totaled RMB1.49 trillion, up by 11.3%, accounting for 14.7% of China’s total foreign trade. China’s trade with the EU, the US, the ROK and Japan reached RMB1.27 trillion, RMB1.07 trillion, RMB535.48 billion and RMB518.2 billion, accounting for 33.4% of the total foreign trade.

3. Imports and exports of private enterprises saw double-digit growth. In the first quarter of 2024, imports and exports of China’s private enterprises rose by 10.7% to RMB5.53 trillion, accounting for 54.3% of the country’s total. Foreign-invested enterprises and state-owned enterprises marked RMB2.97 trillion and RMB1.64 trillion in imports and exports, accounting for 29.3% and 16.1% of the total foreign trade, respectively.

4. Exports of electro-mechanical products and labour-intensive products have shown good momentum of growth. In the first quarter of 2024, exports of electro-mechanical products increased by 6.8% to RMB3.39 trillion, taking up 59.2% of China’s total exports. Exports of computers and their parts, automobiles, ships rose by 8.6%, 21.7% and 113.1%, respectively. Exports of labour-intensive products grew by 9.1% to RMB975.72 billion. Exports of textiles and garments, plastic articles and furniture and its parts grew by 5.4%, 14% and 23.5%, respectively.

5. Imports of commodities and essential consumer products kept expanding steadily. In the first quarter of 2024, imports of commodities including energy products, metalliferous ores and grain food were up by 6.2%. China imported 286 million tons of energy products including crude oil, natural gas and coal, up by 8%; 374 million tons of metalliferous ores including iron ores and aluminium ores, up by 5%; 38.416 million tons of grain food, up by 5.1%. Over the same period, imports of electro-mechanical products increased by 9.6%. Imports of electronic components grew by 13%. Imports of textiles and garment, and fresh or dried fruits and nuts grew by 12.6% and 18%.