China’s foreign trade scale broke the 40 trillion yuan mark for the first time.

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, January 13th (Reporter Zou Duowei) China’s foreign trade scale has reached a new level. According to data released by the General Administration of Customs on the 13th, the total import and export value of China’s goods trade in 2022 was 42.07 trillion yuan, an increase of 7.7% over that in 2021, and it maintained its position as the largest country in goods trade for six consecutive years.

Among them, exports continued to maintain a relatively high growth rate, totaling 23.97 trillion yuan, up 10.5% year-on-year; Imports reached 18.1 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.3%.

Lu Daliang, spokesman of the General Administration of Customs, said that in 2022, in the face of complicated and severe domestic and international situations, China’s foreign trade withstood the impact of multiple unexpected factors and achieved steady growth on the basis of the high base of the previous year. The total value of imports and exports exceeded 40 trillion yuan for the first time, making positive contributions to the steady economic development.

From the perspective of trade patterns, general trade has grown rapidly and its proportion has increased. In 2022, China’s general trade import and export was 26.81 trillion yuan, up 11.5%, accounting for 63.7% of the total import and export value, up 2.2 percentage points from the previous year.

From the perspective of trading partners, China and ASEAN have closer economic and trade exchanges, with the import and export scale reaching 6.52 trillion yuan, an increase of 15%. ASEAN continues to be China’s largest trading partner. In the same period, China’s import and export to countries along the Belt and Road increased by 19.4%, accounting for 32.9% of China’s total foreign trade, up by 3.2 percentage points; Imports and exports to other RCEP member countries increased by 7.5%.

From the perspective of foreign trade subjects, private enterprises have performed well. In 2022, there were 598,000 foreign trade enterprises with import and export performance in China, an increase of 5.6%. The proportion of import and export scale of private enterprises reached 50.9%, an increase of 2.3 percentage points, and the annual proportion exceeded half for the first time.

From the perspective of commodity types, the main products have stable supply and demand and sufficient advantages. In 2022, the import and export of mechanical and electrical products in China was 20.66 trillion yuan, up 2.5%, accounting for 49.1% of the total import and export value. Among them, the export of solar cells, lithium batteries and automobiles increased by 67.8%, 86.7% and 82.2% respectively. In addition, the total import of energy products such as crude oil, natural gas and coal was 3.19 trillion yuan, an increase of 40.9%, accounting for 17.6% of the total import value.

"Overall, in 2022, China’s foreign trade achieved a new breakthrough, and the scale, quality and efficiency of imports and exports increased simultaneously, and the results were hard-won." Lu Daliang said that looking forward to this year, while facing up to the difficult challenges facing foreign trade development, we should also see that China’s economy is strong in resilience, great in potential and full of vitality, and the fundamentals of long-term improvement remain unchanged. This year, the economy is expected to rebound overall, and we must more firmly promote the confidence of stable scale and excellent structure of foreign trade.