China's import and export scale has increased quarter by quarter in the first three quarters
According to data released by the General Administration of Customs on the 13th Oct., China's total import and export value of goods in the first three quarters of 2023 was 30.8 trillion yuan, a slight decrease of 0.2% year-on-year. Among them, in September, the import and export volume reached a new high of 3.74 trillion yuan in a single month within the year; from a monthly perspective, imports and exports in August and September have shown a positive month-on-month growth for two consecutive months. On the same day, Lv Daliang, Director of the Statistics and Analysis Department of the General Administration of Customs, stated that in the face of complex and severe external environment and multiple domestic difficulties and challenges, China's import and export of goods are operating smoothly and actively improving. From a quarterly perspective, the import and export scale has increased quarter by quarter in the first, second, and third quarters.
Statistics show that China's exports reached 17.6 trillion yuan in the first three quarters of this year, a year-on-year increase of 0.6%. Among them, driven by the rapid growth of exports from advantageous industries such as automobiles and their spare parts, ships, and electrical equipment, China's exports of mechanical and electrical products reached 10.26 trillion yuan, an increase of 3.3%, accounting for 58.3% of the total export value, an increase of 1.5 percentage points compared to the same period last year. The CNBC website in the United States mentioned that China's automobile exports still maintain a high growth rate, with a year-on-year increase of 64.4% in the first three quarters of this year. In addition, the export volume of Chinese ships has also accelerated, with a year-on-year increase of 16.2% in the third quarter. Reuters quoted senior analyst Xu Tianchen from the Economist Think Tank as saying, "There is increasing evidence that the cyclical turnaround in the global electronics industry is driving global trade to bottom out and rebound, with China's trade data being the latest sign. This gives us the reason to be more optimistic about the trade outlook in 2024.
In the international market, in the first three quarters, China's imports and exports to emerging markets such as Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America increased by 33.7%, 6.7%, and 5.1%, respectively, all higher than the overall growth rate of China's foreign trade. Recently, China's imports and exports to traditional markets such as the European Union and the United States have also significantly improved. It is worth noting that in the first three quarters, China's import and export to countries jointly building the "the Belt and Road" amounted to 14.32 trillion yuan, up 3.1% year on year, accounting for 46.5% of China's foreign trade scale, and trade exchanges continued to be active.
On the 13th Oct., Zhou Maohua, a macro researcher at the Financial Market Department of Everbright Bank, analyzed to Global Times reporters that in the first three quarters, China's foreign trade import and export performance remained stable, which was achieved under challenges such as global demand slowing down, significant declines in exports from some major foreign trade countries in the surrounding areas, a decline in import and export commodity prices, and a high base last year, demonstrating the resilience of China's foreign trade.
Zhou Maohua said that statistical data showed that the proportion of high-tech exports represented by mechanical and electrical products in China's exports has steadily increased, and the import and export of countries jointly building the "the Belt and Road" and ASEAN and other economies have maintained a rapid growth trend, reflecting the continuous optimization of China's foreign trade structure and the gradual strengthening of new momentum. Zhou Maohua predicts that in the future, China's foreign trade is expected to gradually improve, and the repair and recovery of domestic demand will drive imports of goods, intermediate goods, and other goods, which will also help drive global market demand.
Lv Daliang said that positive factors for China's economic recovery are still accumulating. With the continuous promotion of stable scale and optimized structure of China's foreign trade, the foundation of "stability" is becoming more solid, and the changes in "good" will be more prominent. There is the reason to have confidence in achieving the goal of promoting stability and quality of foreign trade throughout the year and continuously playing the supporting role of imports and exports in the economy.
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