At the Ministry of Commerce’s regular press conference on Thursday, spokesperson He Yadong responded to hot topics including the current foreign trade situation and the development of service trade.
He Yadong said that since the beginning of this year, faced with the complex and severe international political and economic situation, China’s foreign trade has withstood the pressure and continued a good trend of stability and progress.
From January to May, the total import and export value of goods trade was 20.68 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.3%.
Among them, imports increased by 20.5% and exports increased by 11.8%.
Overall, China’s foreign trade has many highlights.
Specifically, first, the import potential continues to be released.
From January to May, the import scale hit a record high for the same period in history.
Among them, imports of high-tech products increased by 31.2%, and bulk commodities and consumer goods also maintained rapid growth.
China’s ultra-large market advantages continue to explode, providing trading partners with broad development space.
Second, the export structure continues to be optimized.
Thanks to a complete and efficient production and supply chain system, China’s commodity supply is stable, quality is reliable, and technology is advanced, and its global recognition continues to rise.
Statistics show that from January to May, exports of mechanical and electrical products increased by 18.4%, accounting for over 63%.
Integrated circuit exports performed strongly, and the “three new” products such as electric vehicles, lithium batteries, and photovoltaics continued to lead the world.
In addition to the above two aspects, He Yadong mentioned that China continues to deeply explore the global market and its trade layout has become more balanced and stable.
From January to May, imports and exports to countries jointly building the “Belt and Road” increased by 13.6%, accounting for over 51%. ASEAN, the European Union, Africa, and Latin America all maintained double-digit growth, and the “circle of friends” for win-win cooperation is getting wider and wider.
“No matter how complex and changing the external environment is, China will unswervingly promote high-level opening up to the outside world, take more pragmatic measures, stabilize exports, expand imports, and inject more stability and positive energy into the world economy.” He Yadong said.
Luo Zhiheng, chief economist of Guangdong Development Securities, analyzed that judging from the development trend of the global technology industry, AI’s driving role in exports is still on the rise and is expected to become a new engine to promote China’s export growth in the future.
On the one hand, the expansion of global AI capital expenditure has not yet ended, and the construction of computing infrastructure is still in its early stages.
As the scale of large model training continues to expand, the demand for AI inference grows rapidly, and AI Agents gradually become more popular, the global demand for computing power infrastructure will continue to grow rapidly.
On the other hand, as AI technology accelerates its implementation in fields such as smart terminals, industrial robots, smart manufacturing equipment, and autonomous driving, the demand for the AI industry chain will gradually spread from data center construction to terminal product upgrades, driving the growth of related commodity exports and further broadening the space for export growth.
This year 1 –
In April, my country’s service trade exports increased by 15%, of which the growth rate of personal cultural and entertainment services was as high as 39.5%, and intellectual property royalties also achieved a rapid growth of 20.8%.
He Yadong mentioned that knowledge-intensive services cover intellectual property, culture and entertainment and other fields.
In the field of intellectual property, data from relevant research institutions show that the amount of external authorization of my country’s innovative drugs has repeatedly hit new highs, accounting for more than 40% of the global market in 2025; in the field of culture and entertainment, China’s digital cultural products such as online articles, online dramas, and online games have created a “Chinese whirlwind” around the world and have become a new engine for cultural consumption and cultural exports. The pace of “content + platform + model” overseas is accelerating.
He Yadong said that since the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Commerce, together with relevant departments, has introduced a series of policies, including promoting the export of travel services, standardizing service trade, accelerating the construction of the National Service Trade Innovation Development Demonstration Zone and the National Digital Trade Demonstration Zone.
At the same time, the Ministry of Commerce continues to implement the “Thousand Sails to the Sea” action plan for foreign cultural trade to help cultural enterprises explore international markets.
Although China is the second largest service trader in the world, it has long had a huge service trade deficit.
Data released by the Ministry of Commerce show that in 2025, my country’s total service import and export volume will be 8.08231 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.4%.
Among them, exports were 3,626.79 billion yuan, an increase of 14.2%; imports were 4,455.51 billion yuan, an increase of 2.5%; the service trade deficit was 828.72 billion yuan.
Policies are continuing to make efforts to support the development of trade in services.
The Ministry of Commerce and the State Administration for Market Regulation recently issued the “Service Trade Standardization Work Action Plan (2026-2030)”, making a series of specific arrangements in terms of accelerating the construction of a service trade standardization work system, strengthening the supply of standards in key areas, and promoting the internationalization of service trade standards.
Fu Yifu, a special analyst at Suzhou Commercial Bank, suggested that the next step is to deepen international economic and trade cooperation, link key countries and regions to carry out service trade cooperation, and coordinate the construction of open platforms such as service trade innovation and development demonstration zones.
In addition, it is necessary to improve the supporting risk management and control system, improve the data export security assessment and cross-border service security certification mechanisms, take into account the vitality of openness and the bottom line of security, and build an all-round open system with relaxed access, perfect supervision, and platform support.
Market restrictions in the fields of cultural tourism and cultural services should also be relaxed, inbound consumption should be expanded, and the export of local characteristic services should be promoted.
In addition, it is necessary to liberalize access to areas related to commercial circulation and digital services, introduce high-quality global resources and advanced experience, and make up for the shortcomings in domestic high-end service supply.
