New driving forces promote the simultaneous improvement of both quantity and quality in foreign trade

In the first quarter of 2026, China's foreign trade achieved a "good start", with a record high import and export scale, laying a solid foundation for the beginning of the "15th Five Year Plan". The foreign trade of the country and several key provinces and cities has shown strong growth momentum, with significant structural optimization and kinetic energy transformation characteristics.

In the first quarter, the total import and export value of goods trade in China reached 11.84 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15%, and the quarterly growth rate was the highest in nearly 5 years. Against the backdrop of a more complex and ever-changing external situation, foreign trade in the first quarter not only had a large scale and high growth rate, but also presented many development highlights.

Firstly, various business entities have achieved coordinated development. In the first quarter, the import and export of private enterprises increased by 16.2%, and their proportion in China's total import and export value further increased to 57.3%. During the same period, the import and export of foreign-invested enterprises and state-owned enterprises increased by 16.1% and 8% respectively. Various types of ownership enterprises have worked together to promote the high-speed and high-quality development of China's foreign trade.

Secondly, the market diversification strategy is steadily advancing. In the first quarter, China's imports and exports to the countries jointly building the "the Belt and Road" grew by 14.2%, accounting for 51.2% of the total import and export value. Both imports and exports to ASEAN and Latin America grew by 15.4%, imports and exports to Africa grew by 23.7%, and imports and exports to other APEC economies grew by 13.4%. Against the backdrop of increasingly strengthened geopolitics and growing uncertainty, the market diversification strategy enables Chinese companies to avoid excessive reliance on a single market.

Thirdly, the expansion of domestic demand drives balanced growth in imports and exports. In the first quarter, China's import growth rate exceeded its export growth rate, highlighting the trend of balanced trade growth. Among them, the import of energy products and metal ore increased by 4.4% and 13.2% respectively, the import of mechanical and electrical products increased by 21.7%, and the import of consumer goods increased by 5.4%, promoting the coordinated development of import and export.

Behind the impressive results lies the continuous development of new export drivers. Observing the rapidly growing export sectors, China's exports of mechanical and electrical products increased by 18.3% in the first quarter, accounting for 63.4% of the total export value, an increase of 3.5 percentage points compared to the same period last year. Among them, the export of green products such as electric vehicles, lithium batteries, wind turbines and their components has significantly increased and has become an important growth engine.

Strong manufacturing capabilities are the foundation of exports. In recent years, China has implemented an innovation driven development strategy, significantly improving the technological level of the manufacturing industry. With the development of the digital economy and artificial intelligence, manufacturing products have continuously shown high-end, intelligent, and green characteristics, providing strong support for the export of high-tech products. The added value of China's equipment manufacturing industry above designated size increased by 8.9% year-on-year in the first quarter, accounting for over 30% of the total industry. Among them, the electronics industry grew rapidly and became the first driving force for industrial growth.

The implementation of the "two new" policies by the government also supports stable and positive investment. In the first quarter, investment in high-tech industries increased by 7.4% year-on-year, with a good trend in new energy investment. Industries such as aerospace and information services maintained double-digit growth. Investment has accumulated production capacity, and the added value of high-tech manufacturing in the first quarter increased by 12.5% year-on-year, the highest point since the second quarter of 2022. On this basis, China's high-tech product exports increased by 25.3%, with exports of storage components, central processing components, and other components growing by 39.1%; The export of power related products such as power generation equipment, transmission and transformation equipment, and energy storage equipment has also exceeded 10%, becoming an important driving force for the sustained and healthy growth of foreign trade.

Looking ahead to the future, there is still uncertainty in the external environment, and the growth rate of global trade may slow down. All sectors of China should be prepared for the future, continuously cultivate new driving forces for foreign trade development, and help foreign trade reach new heights.

Further expand the competitive advantages of high-tech, green, low-carbon, and intelligent products. In the future, the global artificial intelligence industry will develop more rapidly, and the world will enter a critical period of low-carbon transformation. Intelligent and green products will have broader development space. The government needs to support relevant enterprises to establish specialized research institutes, tackle core technologies, achieve coordinated upgrading of the industrial chain, continuously optimize product performance and costs, and continuously strengthen this key driving force.

Empower the manufacturing value chain to climb with the productive service industry as the engine. The productive service industry is the "adhesive" of industrial development, which can effectively promote the specialization and high-end extension of the manufacturing industry in the value chain. The service links of research and development design, modern logistics, inspection and testing are becoming new engines for manufacturing enterprises to improve quality, reduce costs and increase efficiency. Building a high-quality and efficient productive service industry system in the future is an important path to enhance the comprehensive competitiveness of Chinese manufacturing, consolidate and cultivate new foreign trade drivers.

Based on diversified market expansion and supply chain resilience, enhance the overall attractiveness of foreign trade. The attractiveness of China's exports lies not only in product innovation, but also in the combination of efficiency, quality, and complete supply chain capabilities. This requires foreign trade entities to continue to work together, optimize international logistics, deepen market diversification strategies, consolidate and expand overseas markets, and transform the advantages of China's manufacturing system into stable export orders.