In the first quarter, China’s goods trade imports and exports increased by 15% year on year.

　　Since the beginning of this year, China's foreign trade has shown strong momentum and a good start. According to customs statistics, in the first quarter, China's goods trade import and export reached 11.84 trillion yuan, an increase of 15% year-on-year. Among them, exports were 6.85 trillion yuan, an increase of 11.9%, and imports were 4.99 trillion yuan, an increase of 19.6%. The first-quarter import and export exceeded 11 trillion yuan for the first time in history, and the quarterly growth rate was the highest in nearly five years.

　　All types of business entities experienced comprehensive growth. In the first quarter, the import and export of private enterprises in China reached 6.78 trillion yuan, an increase of 16.2%, further raising their share of the total import and export value to 57.3%. During the same period, the import and export of foreign-invested enterprises reached 3.47 trillion yuan, and state-owned enterprises reached 1.56 trillion yuan, with respective growth rates of 16.1% and 8%.

　　Market diversification was further consolidated and expanded. In the first quarter, China's import and export with countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative reached 6.06 trillion yuan, an increase of 14.2%, accounting for 51.2% of the total import and export value. Imports and exports with ASEAN and Latin America both grew by 15.4%, with Africa by 23.7%, with the EU and the UK by 14.6% and 13.1% respectively, and with other APEC economies by 13.4%.

　　New drivers of export growth continued to gain momentum. In the first quarter, China's export of mechanical and electrical products reached 4.34 trillion yuan, an increase of 18.3%, accounting for 63.4% of the total export value, up 3.5 percentage points from the same period last year. Among them, exports of green products such as electric vehicles, lithium batteries, and wind turbine generators and their parts increased by 77.5%, 50.4%, and 45.2%, respectively.

　　Domestic demand expansion drove import growth. In the first quarter, China imported 291 million tons of energy products and 405 million tons of metal ores, increasing by 4.4% and 13.2%, respectively. During the same period, imports of mechanical and electrical products reached 1.97 trillion yuan, an increase of 21.7%, and imports of consumer goods reached 418.92 billion yuan, an increase of 5.4%.