Against the trend, steady growth is evident, and China's high-quality development of foreign trade is solidly underway

Recently, the General Administration of Customs released statistics on China's import and export of goods for the first five months of 2026. The foreign trade market has steadily climbed and the growth momentum is stable, delivering a high-quality development answer sheet with impressive growth rate, optimized structure, and outstanding resilience, demonstrating China's confidence and vitality in foreign trade development. Data shows that in the first five months of 2026, China's total import and export value of goods trade reached 20.68 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.3%, and the overall foreign trade continued to grow steadily and positively. In terms of segmented markets, multilateral economic and trade cooperation has achieved significant results: China's imports and exports to ASEAN, EU, and Africa have increased by 16.6%, 10.3%, and 18.2% respectively; Import and export to countries jointly building the "the Belt and Road" reached 10.57 trillion yuan, up 13.6% year on year. Countries along the Belt and Road continue to become the basic platform for China's foreign trade stability.

The monthly operating trend is also improving, with China's foreign trade imports and exports reaching 4.45 trillion yuan in May, a year-on-year increase of 16.9%, including a 13.8% increase in exports and a 21.5% increase in imports. As of May, China's monthly imports and exports have exceeded 4 trillion yuan for three consecutive months, and the operation of foreign trade has entered a high and stable range. Lv Daliang, Director of the Statistics and Analysis Department of the General Administration of Customs, stated that since the beginning of this year, relying on the guidance of the head of state's diplomatic strategy, China has continued to deepen practical cooperation in global economy and trade, injecting Chinese momentum into the smooth operation of global economy and trade. The highlights of regional characteristic trade are prominent. Starting from May this year, China has fully implemented zero tariff measures for African countries with diplomatic relations, empowering the improvement and expansion of China Africa trade. In the first five months, China's imports and exports to African countries reached 114 trillion yuan, breaking through the trillion yuan mark for the first time in history, with a year-on-year increase of 18.2%; In May, China imported 95.13 billion yuan from Africa, a year-on-year increase of 15%, and the import scale achieved positive growth for nine consecutive months. Relying on the development opportunities of APEC's "China Year", the vitality of Asia Pacific economic and trade cooperation continues to be released. In the first five months, China's imports and exports with other APEC economies reached 1.231 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.4%. The trade volume accounted for nearly 60% of China's total foreign trade value, and the economic and trade linkage in the Asia Pacific region has become increasingly close.

Looking at this foreign trade data, we can understand the impressive performance report through three core dimensions. One is to build a strong foundation for foreign trade with high growth rate and resilience. Currently, global external demand is slowing down and the international economic and trade environment is complex and changing. China's foreign trade has achieved double-digit growth against the trend, relying on a complete domestic supply chain system for the entire industry chain. As the world's largest manufacturing country, China has complete industrial supporting facilities and flexible capacity scheduling, which can effectively hedge external market fluctuations, withstand the downward pressure of global economic and trade, demonstrate the strong resilience and endogenous development vitality of the Chinese economy, and the solid foundation of foreign trade. The second is to achieve transformation and quality improvement through structural optimization and strong driving force. At present, China's foreign trade has completely bid farewell to extensive incremental development and entered a new stage of improving quality and efficiency. The trade structure continues to optimize, with general trade imports and exports accounting for over 60%, and independent industries and brands becoming the main force of foreign trade exports. The export side has formed a dual wheel driving pattern of green industry and high-end manufacturing, with the import and export growth rate of artificial intelligence related products exceeding 50%, and the foreign trade empowerment effect of emerging industries continues to amplify. At the same time, the growth rate of imports is significantly higher than that of exports, which intuitively confirms the strong recovery of domestic market demand. With the implementation of open policies such as zero tariffs, the import of African characteristic agricultural and aquatic products has increased significantly month on month, enriching domestic consumption supply and achieving mutual benefit and win-win results in Sino foreign trade. The two-way circulation and linkage between domestic and foreign markets are smoother. Third, diversification and good policies have broadened the global economic and trade pattern. At present, China's foreign trade market layout continues to be diversified, and its market risk resistance has steadily improved. More than half of the trade of countries jointly building the "the Belt and Road" has been accounted for. Emerging markets such as Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and other emerging markets have seen remarkable trade growth, gradually reducing dependence on traditional European and American markets, and the global trade layout is more balanced. In addition, high-level diplomacy has eased trade frictions and stabilized tariff expectations. National platforms such as the Canton Fair and the Consumer Expo have built cooperation bridges, combined with favorable policies such as zero tariffs and institutional openness, comprehensively reducing cross-border trade costs and helping foreign trade enterprises expand their markets and stabilize orders.

In the long run, China's foreign trade development has sufficient confidence and promising prospects. In the short term, new industries such as new energy "new three types", high-tech manufacturing, and digital trade continue to make efforts to support stable and controllable growth in foreign trade; In the medium to long term, the upgrading of intelligent and green industries in China is accelerating, coupled with the steady promotion of high standard institutional openness, continuously shaping new competitive advantages in foreign trade. In the next stage, China will continue to deepen global economic and trade cooperation, optimize the structure of the foreign trade industry, improve supporting measures for opening up to the outside world, and continuously promote the transformation of foreign trade from scale growth to quality improvement, structural optimization, and diversified layout, steadily consolidating China's position as a global trade hub and assisting the steady development of the real economy.

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