China's foreign trade edged up in the first 11 months of 2025, with total merchandise trade rising 3.6% year-on-year to CNY41.21 trillion, according to the General Administration of Customs (GAC). Exports reached CNY24.46 trillion, up 6.2%, while imports grew 0.2% to CNY16.75 trillion. In November alone, total trade reached CNY3.9 trillion, up 4.1% year-on-year. The growth rate accelerated 4 percentage points from October. In November, exports rose by 5.7% year-on-year, while imports jumped 1.7%. “The January-November data demonstrated that China's foreign trade is developing on track and continues to show strong vitality, regardless of a short-term fluctuation in October,” Tian Yun, an economist based in Beijing, told the Global Times. He cited a number of factors that underpin this positive trajectory, including the strong competitiveness of “Made in China” products, the ongoing industrial upgrade and stepped-up efforts to diversify export markets.
In the first 11 months, exports of mechanical and electrical products reached CNY14.89 trillion, up 8.8% year-on-year, accounting for 60.9% of the country's total exports. Exports of integrated circuits and automobiles expanded 25.6% and 17.6% in year-on-year terms, the data showed. “With more countries successively entering interest-rate-cutting cycles, which is likely to stimulate demand for Chinese goods, I am very confident that China's total foreign trade this year will reach around CNY45 trillion – marking a new milestone,” Tian noted. China's foreign trade hit a record high in 2024, with total merchandise trade at CNY43.85 trillion, up 5% year-on-year, Customs data showed.
Tian is also bullish on China's foreign trade prospects for 2026. “In this era of global turbulence, everyone is looking for a stable and reliable partner, and China is naturally a top choice. In line with this trend, China has been making concrete efforts in pursuing high-standard opening-up. This year, China and ASEAN signed the upgraded China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 Upgrade Protocol, and the country is fully prepared to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPATPP). All these efforts are leading to new growth points in trade, and the country is set to see steady trade growth during the 15th Five Year Plan period (2026-30),” Tian noted.
Reuters reported that China's higher-than-expected exports in November were “driven by a surge in shipments to non-U.S. markets as manufacturers deepen trade ties with the rest of the world,” given the U.S.' prohibitively high tariffs. In the first 11 months, ASEAN remained China's largest trading partner. The EU was China's second-largest trading partner, with trade hitting CNY5.37 trillion, up 5.4% year-on-year, accounting for 13% of China's total foreign trade. China's trade with the U.S., which is China's third-largest trading partner, plunged by 16.9% year-on-year to CNY3.69 trillion in the January-November period, accounting for 8.9% of China's total foreign trade, the Global Times reports.
