The total value of imports and exports in the first 10 months of this year was 34.32 trillion yuan, up 0.03 percent year on year, with exports up 0.4 percent and imports down 0.5 percent, resulting in a trade surplus of 4.78 trillion yuan, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs. Since the beginning of this year, mainly due to the weakening of global demand, the import and export of most Asian manufacturing countries have contracted significantly, and the decline has generally reached double digits. Although China's import and export growth rate is low, but compared with the neighboring countries and regions in Asia, China's foreign trade situation is stable and resilient. On the whole, China's import and export trade has shown a number of positive phenomena.

First, the growth rate of import and export trade has gradually picked up. In the first half of this year, due to the lack of demand, the growth rate of imports and exports declined significantly, and the trend was relatively weak. However, since August, the growth rate of imports and exports has continued to rebound, showing a gradual improvement. The total value of imports and exports rose 0.9% in October, the first positive growth since June. The improvement of import and export is related to the overall improvement of China's internal and external environment. The impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is fading, the US Federal Reserve is nearing the end of its interest rate hike, Sino-Australian relations are easing and exports are improving. Domestic growth has been strengthened, economic recovery has gained momentum, and production and demand have recovered.

Second, more diversified trading partners. In the first 10 months of this year, ASEAN, the European Union and the United States were China's three largest trading partners, with the total import and export value accounting for 15.2%, 13.4% and 11.2% of the total value of China's foreign trade, accounting for a total of nearly 40%. China's trade with ASEAN has maintained a good momentum of development, with increasingly deepening industrial integration and close trade in intermediate products, with intermediate products accounting for more than 60% of the total import and export value between China and ASEAN. The development of bilateral trade between China and the EU, the United States and Japan has remained stable, with imports and exports remaining relatively large as a whole, and imports from the EU and the United States have increased significantly recently. China's trade with countries co-built with the "Belt and Road" has achieved steady growth, with a total import and export of 15.96 trillion yuan this year, an increase of 3.2%, accounting for more than 45% of the total value of China's imports and exports.

Third, export volume growth accelerated. Affected by the fall in global prices, the prices of China's main export products have fallen significantly this year, which is an important reason for affecting the export growth rate. China's overall export price index has been negative year-on-year for six consecutive months, falling 7.9% at the end of the third quarter. Among them, the prices of mining and manufacturing export products fell by 13.5% and 8% year-on-year. Excluding the price factor, from the point of view of export volume, China's export scale has maintained steady growth, and the growth rate has accelerated in recent months. With the weakening of the impact of price fluctuations, the PPI decline has gradually picked up, which is expected to lead to a significant increase in export growth.

Fourth, the structure of export products continued to improve. The export of traditional labor-intensive and low value-added products has decreased, and the export of textiles, clothing and clothing accessories has negative growth, which is an important reason for the growth of China's export. At the same time, the export of high-tech products and new energy products grew rapidly. In the first 10 months of this year, China's export of mechanical and electrical products was 11.43 trillion yuan, an increase of 2.8%, accounting for 58.5% of the total export value, and the proportion continued to increase. The export value of lithium batteries, electric manned vehicles, and solar cells "new three" products has maintained double-digit growth for 14 consecutive quarters, accounting for about 4.5% of China's exports. Driven by the substantial increase in the export of new energy vehicles, the output value of China's automobile exports has reached 582.43 billion yuan this year, a substantial increase of 88.5%.

Fifth, the recovery of domestic demand led to an increase in imports. Due to the decline in commodity and industrial raw material prices, the drag of price factors on import data is more obvious this year. The quantity index showed a significant rebound, showing that the recovery of the domestic economy has a positive role in driving imports. China's import volume has increased for nine consecutive months year-on-year, especially to meet the needs of domestic production of resources and energy products, primary industrial raw materials, key parts, major agricultural products and other imports steadily expanded. In the first 10 months of this year, China's imports of coal, soybeans, crude oil, natural gas and iron ore increased by 66.8%, 14.6%, 14.4%, 8.8% and 6.5%, respectively.

Looking to the future, the scale of China's import and export trade accounts for a large proportion of the world, and it is unrealistic to continue to maintain rapid growth. Especially in the current complex and changeable internal and external environment, from the external environment, affected by Sino-US trade frictions, international geopolitical conflicts, and surrounding areas to increase investment efforts, China's export has formed a certain challenge. From the perspective of the domestic environment, as the economic structure accelerates the transformation and labor costs continue to rise, traditional labor-intensive manufacturing exports may continue to shrink. However, China's export competitiveness continues to increase, and the export scale will still maintain an expansion trend. With the Fed's rapid interest rate hike coming to an end, the global economy will continue to slow down and is expected to gradually stabilize next year, helping external demand to rebound. The WTO estimates that global trade in goods is expected to grow by 3.3% in 2024, with increased demand for and trade in investment goods and durable goods. The 134th Canton Fair held recently handed over a bright report card, offline export turnover reached 22.3 billion US dollars, an increase of 2.8% over the 133rd session, showing a recovery growth trend. In recent years, China has successively promoted the implementation of RCEP, relying on the "Belt and Road" circle of friends, expanding the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, Latin America and other export markets, and constantly increasing the scale of trade with developing countries. China's high-tech industry is growing rapidly, the value chain of export products will gradually increase, and the export of new energy vehicles, high-end equipment, semiconductor chips, and electronic products will maintain rapid growth.