Beijing, September 16 (Xinhua) — According to data released by the General Administration of Customs on the 16th, China and ASEAN have been each other’s largest trading partners for five consecutive years, and ASEAN has been China’s largest trading partner for agricultural products for eight consecutive years.
According to customs statistics, the trade volume between China and ASEAN has increased sevenfold in the past 21 years, from over 870 billion yuan at the first China ASEAN Expo in 2004 to nearly 7 trillion yuan in 2024, and has maintained growth for nine consecutive years since 2016. In the first eight months of this year, China’s imports and exports to ASEAN reached 4.93 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.7%, setting a new historical high in scale and accounting for 16.7% of China’s total import and export value during the same period.
Agricultural cooperation continues to deepen, helping to accelerate the release of complementary advantages in agricultural product trade between the two sides. In the first eight months of this year, China’s import and export of agricultural products to ASEAN reached 290.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.7%, accounting for 20.1% of China’s total import and export value of agricultural products. ASEAN continues to be the largest source of imports for China’s agricultural products such as dried and fresh fruits, edible oil, cassava, and cassava starch. During the same period, the growth rate of China’s exports of characteristic agricultural products such as feathers, down, and animal feed to ASEAN reached double digits.
The increasingly close cooperation in the manufacturing industry has driven rapid growth in the import and export of related products. In the first eight months of this year, China’s import and export of manufacturing products to ASEAN accounted for over 90%. Among them, exports of machine tools and automotive parts to ASEAN increased by 56.1% and 22% respectively year-on-year, while imports of computer components and printed circuits from ASEAN increased by 47.4% and 22.2% respectively.
Lu Daliang, spokesperson for the General Administration of Customs and Director of the Statistics and Analysis Department, stated that China and ASEAN are geographically close and culturally connected, and are jointly committed to the development of regional economic integration. Next, with the comprehensive completion of the China ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 negotiations, the areas of cooperation between the two sides will be further expanded, and the deep integration of regional production and supply chains will be further promoted.
