News analysis: With growth rates returning to double digits, how can China's foreign trade continue to grow steadily?

The 15th Five Year Plan has just begun, and China's foreign trade has delivered a boost!

According to data released by the General Administration of Customs on March 10th, under the combined effects of policy factors, economic factors, and base effects, the total import and export value of goods trade in China reached 7.73 trillion yuan in the first two months of 2026, a year-on-year increase of 18.3%. Since January 2024, it has returned to double-digit growth for the first time.

How should we view such a scale and growth? Looking ahead to the whole year, what can be done to stabilize the scale and optimize the structure of foreign trade?

From the monthly trend, imports and exports increased by 13.6% year-on-year in January. Despite the disturbance caused by the Spring Festival effect in February, the overall growth rate still increased by 10.9 percentage points year-on-year to 24.5%.

Analysts generally believe that the overall performance of China's foreign trade in the first two months has been better than expected, continuing the trend of steady progress and further demonstrating resilience and vitality. Since the beginning of this year, various regions and departments have taken the initiative and made efforts, and foreign trade enterprises have actively stabilized orders and expanded markets, promoting a good start for China's foreign trade.

Under the trend of improvement, China's foreign trade has shown many bright spots.

Export continues to push towards the "new" direction. In the first two months, China's exports increased by 19.2% year-on-year, with the transformation and upgrading of the domestic manufacturing industry driving high growth in exports of automobiles and high-tech products becoming an important reason. In the first two months, the export of mechanical and electrical products increased by 24.3% year-on-year, among which the quantity and amount of automobile exports increased by 57.9% and 63.1% respectively.

The longest Spring Festival holiday saw a significant increase in imports driven by strong consumption. In the first two months, China's imports increased by 17.1% year-on-year. The import of consumer goods related to people's daily lives, such as meat and edible vegetable oil, has shown good growth. In addition, the upgrading of industries has driven an increase of over 21% in the import of mechanical and electrical products, and the import of bulk commodities such as iron ore and crude oil has also achieved double-digit growth.

The accelerated release of various policy dividends has effectively stimulated the vitality of private enterprises. In the first two months, private enterprises imported and exported 4.51 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.8%, continuing to maintain their position as the largest foreign trade operator in China.

On the day of the start of construction on the seventh day of the lunar new year, Dongguan Xieshun Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. in Guangdong Province received nearly 10 million yuan worth of overseas orders. This enterprise, which mainly manufactures industrial connectors, currently has a production schedule until June.

In 2025, our performance reached a new high in nearly three years, and we are expected to maintain a 'good start' this year. The new growth points mainly come from product applications in medical, low altitude economy and other fields, "said Zhu Yunfeng, the director of the company's domestic business.

In recent years, China's international market layout has diversified and progressed, and its ability to resist risks has been continuously enhanced. Customs statistics show that in the first two months, despite a year-on-year decrease of 16.9% in imports and exports to the United States, China's imports and exports to non US countries showed strong momentum. Among them, imports and exports to the European Union, ASEAN, Africa, and Latin America increased by 19.9%, 20.3%, 34.2%, and 19.7% respectively.

At the same time, it should be noted that the external environment facing China's foreign trade development is still complex and severe, and the pressure to stabilize foreign trade is still considerable. Recently, geopolitical conflicts have intensified, and the international economic and trade order as well as the global supply chain have been impacted.

Huang Qunhui, a researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that a good and strong start has laid a solid foundation for China's foreign trade to "stabilize scale and optimize structure" throughout the year, especially in upgrading and developing the manufacturing industry, expanding domestic demand and driving imports, which have brought more sources of vitality to the high-quality development of foreign trade. However, it is necessary to view the high growth momentum of foreign trade at the beginning of the year rationally. Faced with an increase in uncertain and unpredictable factors, stable growth of foreign trade throughout the year still requires efforts from multiple parties.

This year's government work report proposes a series of deployment measures around "promoting stable scale and optimal structure of foreign trade", including "increasing credit and credit insurance support, expanding cross-border use of RMB", "strengthening the construction of international postal logistics system", "encouraging and supporting service exports", and "actively expanding imports".

Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao recently stated that he will focus on new situations and problems in the development of foreign trade, study and introduce incremental policy measures, accelerate the development of digital trade and green trade, promote the export of artificial intelligence products, green electrical equipment and other products, strengthen and cultivate new driving forces for foreign trade, and make every effort to stabilize the foundation of foreign trade.