According to the latest data released by the General Administration of Customs recently, the total import and export value of China's goods trade reached 37.31 trillion billion yuan in the first 10 months of 2025, an increase of 3.6 percent over the same period last year, of which exports reached 22.12 trillion billion yuan, an increase of 6.2 percent. Imports and exports have maintained growth for nine consecutive months and their scale has reached a record high in the same period.

Total exports hit record high in September

judging from the quarterly trend, China's foreign trade growth rate showed a "V-shaped" recovery trend accelerating quarter by quarter. The growth rate was 1.3 in the first quarter, 4.5 in the second quarter and 6% in the third quarter. The import and export scale exceeded 10 trillion billion yuan in the three quarters, maintaining a high historical level.

Stretching the time dimension, in the past decade, even if the global epidemic, tariff frictions and other multiple shocks, China's monthly export scale is still steadily rising. From June to September this year, the scale of exports in a single month exceeded 2.3 trillion yuan, of which exports in September increased by 8.4 year-on-year, a record high in the same period.

"China's foreign trade is growing against the trend. The core is to achieve actual results in export diversification. At the same time, high-tech products continue to join the export sequence, and the product structure continues to upgrade." Huo Jianguo, former dean of the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, pointed out that the competitiveness of Chinese companies in emerging markets continues to be highlighted and has become an important support for foreign trade growth.

Exports to the US fall back to seven-year-old levels

the performance of the US market has become the biggest contrast item in this foreign trade data. In the first 10 months, China's total import and export value to the United States was 3.38 trillion billion yuan, down 15.9 percent from the same period last year, of which exports were 2.52 trillion billion yuan, down 17 percent from the same period last year, and exports to the United States fell 25 percent in October. In terms of scale, this level has fallen back to 7 years ago. Statistics show that China's exports to the United States were 2.56 trillion yuan in the first 10 months of 2018, and the performance in the first 10 months of this year was even lower than that of that year.

In terms of market share, the U.S. share of our exports continues to decline. Between 2015 and 2018, China's exports to the U.S. accounted for nearly 20 percent of total exports, falling to 14.7 percent in 2024 and further falling to 11.4 percent in the first 10 months of this year.

"The reduction in the scale of China's trade with the U.S. market has objectively reduced its marginal influence, and the impact of U.S. tariff policy on the increase in my country's foreign trade exports is weakening." Bai Ming, a researcher at the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, analyzed that although the stock impact is still there, export diversification has effectively hedged the impact of the decline in the single market.

It is worth noting that the extension of the U.S. "reciprocal tariff" suspension period has triggered a short-term export grab effect, and the export growth rate was once high in April and July this year. But in the long run, tariff barriers have raised the threshold of market access, and "the comparative advantage of Chinese products in price and quality is still outstanding", Bai Ming added.

Huo Jianguo reminded that the United States is still the world's largest consumer market, and its demand has not decreased. Vietnam and Mexico's exports to the United States have maintained high growth, and diversification has not completely offset the impact of the decline in exports to the United States.

EU, ASEAN and Africa as growth engines

while exports to the United States are under pressure, my country's exports to other major markets have blossomed in an all-round way, forming a pattern of "one and the other.

As the second largest trading partner, the EU market performed well. In the first 10 months, the total value of China-EU imports and exports was 4.88 trillion billion yuan, an increase of 4.9 percent over the same period last year, of which exports to Europe were 3.3 trillion billion yuan, an increase of 8.4 percent over the same period in 2024, a significant increase from the growth rate of 3.5 percent in the same period in 2024.

ASEAN has become China's largest trading partner, with exports to ASEAN worth 3.87 trillion billion yuan in the first 10 months, an increase of 15.3 percent over the same period last year. What is more noteworthy is that the total export volume to Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines reached 2.69 trillion billion yuan, which has exceeded the scale of exports to the United States.

Huo Jianguo explained that China's investment cooperation in ASEAN countries is intensive, and a large number of intermediate products are exported to the local area for processing and assembly, which has driven the continuous expansion of foreign trade scale. This trend has been particularly obvious in the past ten years-- china's monthly export to ASEAN increased significantly from about 100 billion yuan to more than 400 billion yuan.

The African market is showing explosive growth. In the first 10 months, exports to Africa were 1.3 trillion yuan, up 27.2 percent from the same period last year, maintaining double-digit growth for eight consecutive months, with a growth rate of 56.6 percent in September, and exports in a single month approaching 160 billion yuan.

"the economic and trade growth between China and Africa is the result of deepening cooperation between the two sides over the past 20 years, with strong support for large-scale infrastructure construction." Zhang Jianping, deputy director of the Academic Committee of the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, said that Africa's demand for Chinese equipment manufacturing and parts and components has soared, and infrastructure projects have effectively driven foreign trade exports.

"New Three Samples" Expanded to "New N Samples"

the fundamental support for the resilience of foreign trade lies in the continuous upgrading of the structure of export products. Today, the new momentum of China's foreign trade growth has expanded from the traditional "new three" (electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries, photovoltaic products) to "new N", with high-end equipment manufacturing and green low-carbon products becoming the main force.

In the first 10 months, China exported 13.43 trillion billion yuan of mechanical and electrical products, an increase of 8.7 percent, accounting for 60.7 percent of the total export value, becoming the core force driving exports. Among them, the export value of integrated circuits was 1.16 trillion yuan, up 24.7 percent, the export value of automobiles was 798.39 billion yuan, up 14.3 percent, the export of industrial robots increased by 54.9 percent in the first three quarters, the export volume of new energy vehicles increased by 89.4 percent year-on-year, and the export value of ships increased by 22.4 percent.

"When it comes to the new momentum of foreign trade, it is definitely more than" new three "," new eight "and" new ten "are all possible." Zhang Jianping said that the strong overseas demand for solar energy, wind energy equipment, UHV power transmission and transformation equipment, robots and other products is behind the continuous promotion of the national innovation driven development strategy, which has greatly improved the export competitiveness. In contrast to the high growth of high-tech products, the overall growth rate of labor-intensive products exports weakened. In the first three quarters, the export of clothing and clothing accessories fell by 1.6, and the export of shoes and boots fell by 8.1, reflecting my country's export structure to high added value. The clear trend of transformation.

Short-term volatility does not change long-term resilience.

Statistics show that the total value of imports and exports in October was 3.7 trillion billion yuan, up 0.1 percent. In terms of exports, China's exports grew at a year-on-year rate of -1.1 per cent in October, down sharply from 8.3 per cent last month.

for the short-term decline in export growth in October, market institutions and experts generally believe that it is a short-term phenomenon of multiple factors. Guosheng Securities chief economist Xiong Yuan pointed out that the October export growth rate down is the base disturbance under the abnormal value, in October last year by the typhoon affected export delay, Trump was elected is expected to trigger the export effect, pushed up the same period base, excluding the base impact after two years of compound growth rate of 5.5, still maintain steady growth.

Shenvan Hongyuan Securities chief economist Zhao Wei added, October working days decreased by 3 days year-on-year, superimposed on the National Day after the slow pace of supply recovery, further drag on the data, and in September the manufacturing industry "rush production" after the retreat effect has also appeared. However, positive signals have emerged: the last week of October port foreign trade freight volume surged to 20% year-on-year, reflecting the acceleration of production resumption; by China's industrial chain radiation of South Korea, Vietnam in October exports showed a "U-shaped" trend, the second half of the obvious improvement, indicating that the supply disturbance is receding.