Understanding the new elements in China's over 43 trillion yuan economic report

On January 13, China released its annual report card on foreign trade, with impressive figures. According to customs statistics, in 2024, China's foreign trade continuously surpassed the 42 and 43 trillion yuan marks, with total import and export value reaching 43.85 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5%, setting a new historical high and successfully achieving the goal of both quality improvement and stable quantity.

In recent years, geopolitical tensions, shrinking external demand, and trade protectionism have presented significant challenges and uncertainties to the economic and trade development of various countries. Against this backdrop, China's foreign trade has withstood multiple pressures, and achieving these results has been hard-won.

Where did the resilience and impetus come from?

The constantly increasing "new" content is an important support. Compared with the past, China's foreign trade in 2024 has been even more "innovative".

From the perspective of products, more and more new products with high-tech attributes are accelerating their "export." From small items like 3D printers and flat-panel display modules to large items like electric vehicles and wind turbine generator sets, the export growth rate has significantly exceeded the overall growth rate of China's exports.

From the perspective of business models, new business models such as cross-border e-commerce, bonded repair, and border trade have developed rapidly. Among them, cross-border e-commerce reached 2.63 trillion yuan in total import and export value, an increase of 1 trillion yuan compared to 2020, with double-digit growth.

From the perspective of markets, while maintaining growth in traditional markets such as Europe and the United States, China has actively expanded its "circle of friends": it has been each other's largest trading partner with ASEAN for five consecutive years, the proportion of imports and exports with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative has exceeded half for the first time, and the contribution rate of imports and exports with the five countries of Latin America, Africa, Central Asia, and Central and Eastern Europe to China's foreign trade growth is nearly 60%.

One must strive constantly to advance, for even a slight slackening leads to significant setbacks.

"Those who don't go global will be left behind." "It's better to go out and face challenges than to sit at home and do nothing." At the beginning of the new year, many foreign trade professionals have already begun their "frequent flyer" mode, going abroad to attend exhibitions, negotiate, and meet customers. Their willingness to take risks and fight hard is a vivid footnote to China's foreign trade's ability to overcome difficulties.

At the same time, it is important to note that the current international landscape is undergoing rapid changes, with unilateralism and protectionism on the rise and trade barriers increasing, indicating that the foreign trade development environment is still not optimistic. In particular, in 2025, the external environment will become even more complex and changeable, and China's foreign trade will face severe challenges in maintaining steady growth.

For China's foreign trade, which has grown amidst market storms, the international trade situation is always full of both challenges and opportunities. At this new starting point, how can China utilize the "new" achievements and accumulated "new" strength from 2024 to generate more new growth in foreign trade?

The Central Economic Work Conference held in December last year listed "stabilizing foreign trade" as a key task for this year. Recently, policies and measures to promote the stable growth of foreign trade, such as promoting the development of cross-border e-commerce, expanding exports of characteristic agricultural products, and optimizing customs clearance procedures, have been successively introduced and implemented, and a new synergy for foreign trade development is being formed.

With the Spring Festival approaching, many enterprises are still operating at full capacity. In order to provide tailor-made services to overseas customers, in addition to the usual practice of producing summer clothes in winter and winter clothes in summer, a clothing company in Zhejiang province is busy transforming and upgrading its production lines to flexible customization.

The company's head told reporters that in the face of the transfer of industrial chains in traditional manufacturing, it is necessary to enhance supply capacity through accelerated innovation and firmly grasp the "bull's-eye" of core competitiveness.

Facts have proved that the more intense the competition, the greater the pressure to drive reform and innovation. Today, adhering to the strategy of enhancing competitiveness through industrial upgrading, opening up new spaces through diversified markets, and shaping new impetus through high-level opening up is becoming an important focus for thousands of foreign trade operators.

In exploring the development process of China's foreign trade, it is also necessary to recognize that only by moving towards "innovation" can we better pursue steady progress amid change. We must use innovation to improve quality, address bottlenecks, difficulties, and pain points in development, and open up new horizons for foreign trade development.

2025 has opened a new chapter, and in factories and industrial parks, the momentum of foreign trade enterprises striving for a "good start" has already emerged. The picture of hard work contains the vigorous pulse of economic development and also embodies the beautiful expectations for the future. As the constantly increasing "new" content accumulates strong momentum, the foundation for the stability of foreign trade will be more solid, the improvements will be more prominent, and its support for high-quality economic development will be even stronger.