China's merchandise trade in the first two months of 2024 hit a record high of CNY6.61 trillion, up 8.7% year-on-year, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) announced, beating forecasts and signaling a good start to the new year. Experts said that exports had gained growth momentum thanks to expanding demand and rising product competitiveness. Exports in the first two months rose 10.3% to CNY3.75 trillion, and imports were up 6.7% to CNY2.86 trillion. ASEAN remained China's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade totaling CNY993.24 billion, up 8.1% year-on-year and accounting for 15% of China's total trade. The EU was China's second-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade of CNY832.39 billion, down by 1.3%. The U.S. was No 3, with trade up 3.7% to CNY707.7 billion. In the first two months, trade with Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries reached CNY3.13 trillion, up 9%.
Zhou Maohua, Economist at China Everbright Bank, said that the record trade figures reflected the recovery of overseas demand, the optimization of the export structure and a boom in new export drivers. Electromechanical products accounted for nearly 60% of total Chinese exports, as those of automatic data processing equipment reached CNY195.45 billion, up 7.3%, while exports of integrated circuits soared 28.6% and those of vehicles increased by 15.8%.
Conditions were also favorable for trade by private enterprises. Their total trade stood at CNY3.61 trillion, up 17.7%, accounting for 54.6% of the total – an increase of 4.2 percentage points from the same period last year. “Growth in exports led to an increase in domestic production, while the increase in imports reflected strong domestic demand, both of which will help drive the country's GDP growth in the first quarter of this year,” Wang Peng, Associate Research Fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
