The first quarter of China's import and export report card released! Which products are the brightest and which markets are growing fastest?

The State Council Information Office held a press conference at 3 pm on April 12. Wang Lingjun, deputy director of the General Administration of Customs, introduced the import and export situation in the first quarter of 2024 and answered reporters' questions.

Wang Lingjun pointed out: in the first quarter of this year, under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core, China adhered to the general tone of seeking progress in the midst of stability, completely, accurately, and comprehensively implemented the new concept of development, and accelerated the construction of a new development pattern. we will solidly promote high-quality development, continue to pick up and improve economic operation, steadily improve the quality of foreign trade development, and raise the scale of import and export to a new level.

The import and export in the first quarter mainly has the following five aspects:

First, the scale of import and export exceeded 10 trillion yuan for the first time in the same period of history, and the growth rate of import and export reached a new high in six quarters.

According to customs statistics, in the first quarter, the total import and export value of my country's goods trade was 10.17 trillion yuan, an increase of 5% year-on-year (the same below).

Among them, exports were 5.74 trillion billion yuan, up 4.9 percent; imports were 4.43 trillion billion yuan, up 5 percent; exports and imports were 4.1 and 2.3 percent faster than in the fourth quarter of last year, respectively.

Second, the growth rate of imports and exports to the "the belt and road initiative" countries and other BRICS countries is higher than that of the whole.

In the first quarter, my country's imports and exports to countries that jointly built the "Belt and Road" were 4.82 trillion billion yuan, an increase of 5.5 percent, accounting for 47.4 percent of the total import and export value, an increase of 0.2 percentage points year-on-year. Among them, imports and exports to ASEAN amounted to 1.6 trillion billion yuan, up 6.4 percent.

During the same period, imports and exports to the other nine BRICS countries were 1.49 trillion billion yuan, an increase of 11.3 percent, accounting for 14.7 percent. In addition, imports and exports to the European Union, the United States, South Korea and Japan were 1.27 trillion, 1.07 trillion, 535.48 billion and 518.2 billion yuan respectively, accounting for 33.4 per cent of the total.

During the same period, imports and exports to Latin America and Central Asia all achieved double-digit growth. For the United States, Japan and other traditional markets to pick up, the first quarter of import and export decline compared to 2023 narrowed by 5.9, 1.2 percentage points.

Lu Dalong, spokesman for the General Administration of Customs and director of the Statistical Analysis Department, said at the meeting that since the BRICS leaders' meeting in 2009, China's trade with other BRICS countries has become increasingly close. The import and export value with Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa has increased from 960.21 billion yuan in 2009 to 4.32 trillion yuan in 2023, with an average annual growth rate of 11.3, 3.8 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of China's imports and exports in the same period.

In 2024, the BRICS cooperation mechanism has entered a new stage, with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Iran and Ethiopia becoming full members of the BRICS. In the first quarter, China's imports and exports to the other nine BRICS countries totaled 1.49 trillion billion yuan, an increase of 11.3 percent, accounting for 14.7 percent of China's total import and export value. China's cooperation with other BRICS countries in various fields is highly complementary, and its import and export have their own characteristics.

my country is Brazil's largest trading partner and largest export market, and Brazil is my country's largest trading partner in Latin America. In the first quarter, China's exports to Brazil were 114.28 billion billion yuan, up 25.7 percent, and imports from Brazil were 208 billion billion yuan, up 30.1 percent.

Sino-Russian trade continues to expand. In 2023, the two sides completed ahead of schedule the annual trade volume target of 200 billion US dollars jointly set by the leaders of the two countries. Since the beginning of this year, trade between China and Russia in the fields of energy, automobiles, general machinery and equipment has continued to grow.

China-India trade grew year-on-year for five consecutive quarters, up 8.5 percent in the first quarter, maintaining a good momentum of development.

South Africa has been China's largest trading partner in Africa for 14 consecutive years. In the first quarter, China exported 35.11 billion yuan to South Africa and imported 66.46 billion yuan from South Africa.

In addition, my country has maintained good cooperation with Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the field of energy trade. Both countries were the top ten source countries of my country's energy products in the first quarter. my country has carried out practical cooperation with Egypt and Ethiopia in the field of infrastructure. In the first quarter, my country's exports of foreign contracted projects to the above two countries achieved rapid growth. In addition, my country's "small commodities" are very popular in Iran. In the first quarter, my country's procurement and exports to the Iranian market increased by 15.2.

Third, the import and export of private enterprises maintained double-digit growth.

In the first quarter, China's private enterprises imported and exported 5.53 trillion billion yuan, an increase of 10.7 percent, accounting for 54.3 percent of the total value of imports and exports.

During the same period, foreign-invested enterprises imported and exported 2.97 trillion yuan, accounting for 29.3 percent, and state-owned enterprises imported and exported 1.64 trillion yuan, accounting for 16.1 percent.

Fourth, the export momentum of mechanical and electrical products and labor-intensive products is good.

In the first quarter, China's exports of mechanical and electrical products totaled 3.39 trillion billion yuan, an increase of 6.8 percent, accounting for 59.2 percent of the total export value, of which computers and their parts, automobiles and ships increased by 8.6 percent, 21.7 percent and 113.1 percent respectively.

During the same period, exports of labor-intensive products increased by 9.1 per cent to 975.72 billion billion yuan, of which textiles and clothing, plastic products, furniture and their parts increased by 5.4 per cent, 14 per cent and 23.5 per cent, respectively.

Fifth, imports of bulk commodities and consumer goods have steadily expanded.

In the first quarter, China's imports of energy, metal ore, grain and other bulk commodities increased by 6.2. Among them, crude oil, natural gas and coal and other energy products 0.286 billion tons, an increase of 8%; iron, aluminum and other metal ore 0.374 billion tons, an increase of 5%; grain 38.416 million tons, an increase of 5.1.

During the same period, imports of mechanical and electrical products increased by 9.6, of which imports of electronic components increased by 13 per cent. In addition, imports of textiles and clothing, dried and fresh fruits and nuts increased by 12.6 and 18% respectively.

On the whole, my country's foreign trade started strongly and started well in the first quarter, laying a solid foundation for achieving the goal of "quality increase and quantity stability" throughout the year. At present, profound changes have taken place in the international environment, and the world economic development is facing many severe challenges, which will bring greater tests to China's foreign trade. But at the same time, we must also see that my country's economic fundamentals continue to improve, the comprehensive competitive advantage of foreign trade has been consolidated, and the continued improvement of imports and exports has solid support.

Talk about the situation in the second quarter. Wang Lingjun said that in general, unfavorable factors such as geopolitical tensions and trade protectionism still exist, bringing certain difficulties and challenges to foreign trade. However, we must see that there are also many favorable factors in the current development of foreign trade. Global trade is showing signs of stabilization and improvement. The day before yesterday, the WTO also predicted a rebound in trade this year, speculating that global trade in goods will increase by 2.6 in 2024. The latest report of the United Nations Trade and Development Commission also believes that global trade in goods tends to be optimistic. The results of the China Customs Trade Prosperity Survey showed that the proportion of companies that reflected the increase in export and import orders in March increased significantly from the previous month. It is expected that China's import and export will continue to improve in the second quarter, and the first half of the year will basically remain in the growth channel.