By He Yin, People’s Daily
China’s recently released foreign trade data for the first four months of 2026 shows robust growth, with total goods imports and exports rising 14.9 percent year-on-year. This continues the steady, positive momentum observed in the first quarter.
The stronger-than-expected performance has drawn broad international attention. Overseas media have frequently described China’s trade as exhibiting “strong momentum,” “sustained export dynamism,” and “renewed economic resilience.” These figures offer the world a clearer view of the solid foundations supporting China’s steady economic progress and long-term development confidence.
As a vital window into China’s economic vitality, foreign trade vividly demonstrates how the country’s development continues to benefit the world. Despite external headwinds and rising uncertainties, China’s foreign trade has delivered an impressive performance marked by expanding size, improving structure and numerous highlights.
In the first four months of the year, China’s total goods trade reached 16.23 trillion yuan ($2.39 trillion), including 4.38 trillion yuan in April alone, highlighting both strong growth momentum and steady development.
During this period, the advantages of China’s supersized domestic market continued to emerge, driving imports to maintain double-digit growth. At the same time, accelerated upgrading in the manufacturing sector provided solid support for export growth.
The vitality of foreign trade business entities continued to increase. Private enterprises further consolidated their role as the backbone in stabilizing foreign trade, and foreign-invested companies showed steadily improving willingness to participate in the Chinese market.
A foreign media outlet noted that China’s foreign trade has made a strong start this year and laid a solid economic and trade foundation at the beginning of the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030).
Medical instruments for overseas clients are manufactured in a workshop of a medical company in Xuzhou, east China’s Jiangsu province. (Photo/Sun Jingxian)
New growth drivers are continuing to gather strength, accelerating the shift in China’s foreign trade from expansion in size to improvement in quality.
In the first four months of the year, high-tech and high-value-added electromechanical products accounted for 63.5 percent of China’s total exports. Exports of electric vehicles, lithium batteries and wind turbine units all surged by more than 40 percent, while industrial robot exports rose by 30 percent. Chinese manufacturing is rapidly moving toward higher-end, greener and smarter development, steadily climbing up the global value chain.
At the same time, China’s imports of electromechanical products rose by 23.6 percent. Among them, imports of automatic data-processing equipment and components, as well as integrated circuits, increased by 55.9 percent and 43.5 percent respectively, indicating that global innovation resources are accelerating their concentration in China.
Supported by continuously improving market procurement trade pilot programs and cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones that now cover nearly the entire country, new forms of trade such as offshore trade and bonded maintenance services are flourishing and gaining momentum.
New industries, technologies and business models are reshaping the landscape of China’s foreign trade growth while injecting strong momentum into the stable upgrading of global industrial and supply chains.
Amid a challenging global economic recovery, openness, cooperation, and mutual benefit remain crucial. China continues to pursue a diversified market strategy: deepening engagement with traditional markets while vigorously expanding into emerging ones, steadily broadening its circle of economic and trade partners. From January to April, trade with ASEAN and Latin America grew over 15%, while exchanges with the EU and South Korea remained stable and improving.
The benefits of China’s zero-tariff measures for 53 African countries with diplomatic ties are also becoming increasingly evident. Bilateral trade exceeded 800 billion yuan for the first time during the same period. Distinctive African products are enriching China’s consumer market, while high-quality Chinese products are supporting Africa’s development and modernization efforts.
As “exporting to China” and “shopping in China” become increasingly integrated, China continues to send a clear message to the world through its unwavering commitment to high-level opening up, a message of mutually beneficial cooperation and shared prosperity.
Building China into a strong trading nation, improving the quality and efficiency of foreign trade, and promoting balanced development of imports and exports are essential components of China’s high-quality development strategy, as well as an important manifestation of its responsibility in building an open world economy.
China has ranked first globally in total goods trade for nine consecutive years, while maintaining a stable share of the international market.
It keeps refining foreign-related economic and trade institutional rules, expands pilot free trade zones step by step and presses ahead with institutional opening up. The country also earnestly delivers on free trade agreements and further strengthens regional economic and trade ties.
Additionally, it takes part in global trade governance and facilitates the improvement of multilateral economic and trade regulations. Through all these tangible efforts, China has taken concrete actions to safeguard the multilateral trading system and contribute to the stable development of global trade.
The “quality” of China’s foreign trade reflects the “resilience” of the Chinese economy and underscores the steady start to the 15th Five-Year Plan period. A China committed to high-quality development will continue to serve as a reliable and dependable stabilizing force in a turbulent world, constantly creating opportunities, delivering hope and generating momentum for global development.
