MK sport 2025 shows containers at the Lianyungang Port in Lianyungang City, East China's Jiangsu Province. Photo: VCG" src="https://www.globaltimes.cn/Portals/0/attachment/2025/2025-03-07/c3b2edad-bf24-4e59-8ef3-e3ccdaf25874.jpeg" />

Aerial photo taken on March 7, 2025 shows containers at the Lianyungang Port in Lianyungang City, East China's Jiangsu Province. Photo: VCG

China's foreign trade market has gotten off to a good start in 2025, with exports reaching a record high, the overall trade volume remaining generally stable and trade structure improving in the first two months of the year, despite an increasingly complex and severe external environment.

The country's exports rose by 3.4 percent year-on-year to reach 3.88 trillion yuan ($535.25 billion) from January to February 2025, marking a historical high for the period, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said on Friday.

"This fully demonstrates the advantages of China's market, its comprehensive industrial system and the resilience of its foreign trade sector," Huo Jianguo, a vice chairman of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies in Beijing, told the Global Times on Friday.

Analysts also pointed out that such an increase in exports in the first two months of this year was hard-won given the high base in the same period in 2024, which stood at 3.75 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.3 percent, also a historical high at that time. 

Due to the high base last year, total imports and exports in the first two months of 2025 showed a moderate decrease of 1.2 percent year-on-year, totaling 6.54 trillion yuan, according to the GAC.

However, after excluding the impact of incomparable factors, China's total foreign trade in goods saw a year-on-year growth of 1.7 percent in the first two months, Lü Daliang, GAC spokesperson and director of the GAC's Department of Statistics and Analysis, said on Friday.

China's foreign trade remained generally stable in the first two months, as various regions and departments actively responded to adverse effects resulting from the external environment, said Lü.

Despite the US and some Western countries continued to promote trade protectionism, China's exports to the US and the EU increased in the first two months.

China's exports to the EU increased by 1.8 percent and exports to the US surged by 3.4 percent, data showed. 

China's exports to the US maintained positive growth in January-February, which could partly be attributed to the "rush to import" effect from US importers, Feng Lin, executive director of Research and Development at Golden Credit Rating, said in a note sent to the Global Times on Friday.

"Data shows that US import growth in January reached 11.9 percent year-on-year, while the growth rate in December was 12.4 percent. This may indicate that US importers sought to partially offset the impact of the 10 percent tariff increase on Chinese goods exported to the US, which took effect on February 4," said Feng.

"The strong exports were within our expectations, as the resilience of China's supply chain empowers the core competitiveness of its products," Zhu Qiucheng, CEO of Ningbo New Oriental Electric Industrial Development, an exporter of home furnishing products, told the Global Times on Friday.

This reinforces that the world needs China's high-quality products, which are irreplaceable, especially amid trade protectionism of certain countries that harms their own consumers, Huo noted.

Improving trade structure

The latest GAC data also showed that China's foreign trade structure continues to improve, with technology-intensive products weighing higher in the country's exports. 

In the first two months, exports of machinery and electronics reached 2.33 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.4 percent year-on-year, accounting for 60 percent of the total export value. 

Among them, exports of automatic data processing equipment and its components reached 217.68 billion yuan, up 11.7 percent, while integrated circuits reached 180.44 billion yuan, up 13.2 percent. Exports of vehicles totaled 116.02 billion yuan, up 3.7 percent, according to the GAC data. 

In comparison, the exports of labor-intensive products dropped 8.2 percent to 608.13 billion yuan during the same period, accounting for 15.7 percent of China's total exports, GAC data showed.

Wang Wentao, Minister of Commerce, said on Thursday at a press conference on the sidelines of the two sessions that from small appliances like coffee machines and robotic vacuum cleaners to larger products such as electric vehicles and industrial robots, China's exports are becoming more technology-intensive and widely recognized globally.

Huo also noted that China's foreign trade continues to build on the strong growth momentum seen in 2024, as China's high-quality products are widely welcomed by consumers worldwide. 

"China's foreign trade, especially exports, is witnessing a transition from pursuing quantity to stressing high-quality and high-value-added," said Zhu.

Apart from increasingly technology-driven products that weigh more in China's exports, the country's trade partners also witnessed a trend toward more diversification.

In the first two months of 2025, ASEAN, the EU, the US, and South Korea were the top four largest trade partners for China, according to GAC statistics.

In the first two months, ASEAN was China's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching 1.03 trillion yuan, up 4 percent year-on-year. The EU was China's second-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching 833.34 billion yuan. The US ranked third, with a trade volume totaling 733.67 billion yuan, up 3.5 percent, GAC data showed.

Wang also indicated on Thursday that China's trade partnerships have become more diversified in 2024, as the country has become a primary trading partner for more than 150 countries and regions, with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) accounting for over 50 percent of China's total foreign trade for the first time.

"It is necessary for Chinese exporters to diversify their destination markets as some policies of the new US administration are bringing more uncertainty to exports to the US market," said Zhu, adding that the importance of ASEAN, BRI participating countries and emerging markets is increasing to reduce the volatility risks from uncertainty in the single market.

Future measures

China will work for stable development of foreign trade by bolstering policies for stabilizing foreign trade and supporting enterprises in securing orders and exploring new markets, according to the Government Work Report.

It will improve financial services related to financing, settlement, and foreign exchange, expand the scale and coverage of export credit insurance, and provide more support to enterprises participating in and organizing exhibitions abroad, the report said.

Wang noted on Thursday that currently, the adverse effects of the external environment are deepening, with unilateralism and protectionism on the rise. Some countries are wielding the "tariff stick," disrupting international trade order and impacting the stability of global industrial and supply chains, posing severe challenges to China's foreign trade development. 

However, Wang also said that many Chinese foreign trade enterprises told him that China's foreign trade has weathered many storms over the past years, but have stood the test of time. They believe that "there are always more solutions than difficulties."

Huo said that although global trade protectionism is on the rise, China needs the world, and the world also needs China. 

With the continuous implementation of policies to stabilize foreign trade by relevant departments, it is believed that China's foreign trade will maintain a stable and healthy development trend, Huo said.

"As an industry practitioner, I remain confident in the healthy and stable development of China's foreign trade in 2025," said Zhu, adding that the resilience of China's supply chain has been proven by time.