Chinese foreign trade increases by 3.6% over the first eleven months of the year
China's foreign trade grew slightly in the first 11 months of 2025, with the total merchandise trade volume increasing 3.6 percent year-on-year to 41.21 trillion yuan ($5.83 trillion), according to data released by the General Administration of Customs on Monday. Exports reached 24.46 trillion yuan, up 6.2 percent, while imports rose 0.2 percent to 16.75 trillion yuan, the data showed.
Observers said they believed that these encouraging data, including the rapid rebound in trade growth in November, underlined the competitiveness and resilience of China's foreign trade engine. Figures for the first 11 months of the year also reflect strong expansion, with one analyst even predicting that trading volume could reach around 45 trillion yuan for the full year, which would be a new record.
In November alone, total trade reached 3.9 trillion yuan, up 4.1 percent year-on-year, according to the released data. The growth rate accelerated by 4 percentage points compared to October. In November, exports rose 5.7% year-on-year, while imports jumped 1.7%.
“The data from January to November demonstrate that Chinese foreign trade is developing as expected and continues to show strong dynamism, despite an economic fluctuation in October,” Tian Yun, an economist based in Beijing, said on Monday. He cited several factors explaining this positive trajectory, including the strong competitiveness of “Made in China” products, ongoing industrial modernization, as well as increased efforts to diversify export markets.
In the first 11 months of the year, exports of mechanical and electrical products reached 14.89 trillion yuan, up 8.8 percent year-on-year, accounting for 60.9 percent of the country's total exports. Exports of integrated circuits and automobiles increased by 25.6% and 17.6% respectively year-on-year, the data showed.
"With many countries successively entering cycles of interest rate cuts, which is expected to boost demand for Chinese products, I am confident that China's total foreign trade will reach around 45 trillion yuan this year, marking a new milestone," Tian said.
China's foreign trade hit a record high in 2024, with the total volume of goods reaching 43.85 trillion yuan, up 5 percent year-on-year, customs data showed.
Tian also expressed optimism about China's foreign trade prospects for 2026. "In this period of global turbulence, everyone is looking for a stable and reliable partner, and China naturally emerges as a top choice. With this in mind, China has made concrete efforts to continue its high-level opening-up.”
“This year, China and ASEAN signed the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement Upgrade Protocol 3.0, and the country is fully ready to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). All these efforts open up new growth prospects for trade, and China is expected to see sustained growth in trade during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030),” Tian said.
Reuters reported Monday that China's better-than-expected November exports were "driven by a surge in shipments to non-U.S. markets as manufacturers deepen trade ties with the rest of the world" in the face of prohibitive U.S. tariffs.
In the first 11 months of the year, ASEAN remained China's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching 6.82 trillion yuan, up 8.5 percent year-on-year, accounting for 16.6 percent of China's total foreign trade. The European Union (EU) was China's second largest trading partner, with trade amounting to 5.37 trillion yuan, up 5.4% year-on-year, or 13% of China's total foreign trade.
China's trade with the United States, its third-largest trading partner, fell 16.9 percent year-on-year to 3.69 trillion yuan between January and November, accounting for 8.9 percent of China's total foreign trade.
He Weiwen, a senior researcher at the Center for China and Globalization, told the Global Times on Monday that the decline demonstrated the continuing impact of U.S. tariff policies on trade.
The Chinese and American delegations reached consensus in principle in Kuala Lumpur in October on the terms of resolving their respective trade disputes, which raised hopes of a gradual resumption of bilateral trade. "However, real recovery would require the United States to make more efforts to move closer to China and demonstrate more sincerity in ending the restrictions it continually imposes on China on trade and economic issues," He added.
During the first eleven months of the year, China's trade with partner countries of the Belt and Road Initiative increased by 6% year-on-year to reach 21.33 trillion yuan.
“Despite trade tensions, protectionism and the industrial policies of G20 economies, China's advantage in advanced manufacturing and its dominance in emerging high-growth sectors like electric vehicles, batteries and robotics, mean that we expect its global export market share to reach 16.5% by 2030, up from 15% currently,” said Chetan Ahya, chief Asia economist at Morgan Stanley, in a note from research sent to the Global Times on Monday.
