Comprehensive Progress in High-Standard Opening-Up and Further Consolidation of China’s Strength in Trade

Comprehensive Progress in High-Standard Opening-Up and Further Consolidation of China’s Strength in Trade

—Series Report VIII on Achievements in Economic and Social Development during the 14th Five-Year Plan Period

The National Bureau of Statistics, June 3, 2026

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the international economic order and governance system faced severe challenges, with rising unilateralism and protectionism. Facing complex and challenging international circumstances, under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, China has comprehensively advanced high-standard opening-up and made remarkable progress in building itself into a trader of quality. Over the past five years, China has maintained its position as the world’s largest trader in goods, witnessed rapid growth in trade in services, optimized its structure of foreign capital utilization, and made orderly progress in outbound investment. New achievements have been made in open cooperation, and the Belt and Road Initiative has been further deepened with tangible results. Through its new development, China has created fresh opportunities for the world and injected strong impetus into global economic recovery.

I. The Steady Improvement of Quality and Efficiency of Trade in Goods, with China’s Status as a Top Trader Further Consolidated

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China’s foreign trade advanced under pressure against a backdrop of slowing global economic growth, intensifying geopolitical conflicts, and significantly increased trade barriers. It achieved steady growth in “volume” and a profound leap in “quality,” further consolidating its status as a top trader, accelerating its efforts to become a trader of quality, and significantly enhancing its resilience against external shocks.

(I) New Highs Successively Achieved in Trade in Goods

From 2021 to 2025, China’s total imports and exports of goods ^[1] reached RMB 211.5 trillion, with an average annual growth rate of 7.1%, exceeding that of the 13th Five-Year Plan period and the 12th Five-Year Plan period by 1.5 and 3.1 percentage points, respectively. Of this, exports totaled RMB 121.3 trillion, with an average annual growth of 8.5%; imports totaled RMB 90.2 trillion, with an average annual growth of 5.3%. Over the five years, China’s annual total import and export value successively exceeded RMB 40 trillion and RMB 45 trillion, reaching RMB 45.5 trillion in 2025, an increase of 41.1% from 2020. China’s share of global exports remained above 14%, and its import share stabilized around 10%, with its volume of trade in goods consistently ranking first in the world.

In 2021, as China achieved major success in coordinating COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control with economic and social development, imports and exports of goods surged by 20.2% from the previous year, of which exports grew by 19.5% and imports by 21.1%, making a significant contribution to maintaining the stability and smooth functioning of global industrial and supply chains and promoting global economic recovery and development. In 2022, facing the triple pressures of demand contraction, supply shocks, and weakening expectations, China’s imports and exports demonstrated strong resilience, with the total volume surpassing the RMB 40 trillion threshold, up 7.6% from the previous year. In 2023, as global economic recovery stalled and global trade remained sluggish, China’s exports grew moderately against the trend, achieving improvements in growth drivers, regional expansion, and commodity structure. In 2024, China’s trade in goods maintained steady and relatively fast growth, increasing by 5.0% from the previous year, of which exports grew by 7.1% and imports by 2.2%. In 2025, despite severe shocks to the international economic and trade order and a more complex external environment, China’s trade in goods still achieved stable growth, increasing by 3.8% from the previous year, demonstrating the strong resilience and vitality of China’s foreign trade.

(II) Diversified Development of Trade Partners

China continued to consolidate traditional markets and explore new ones, expanding its foreign trade circle and the scope of trade diversification. By the end of 2025, China had become a major trading partner for over 160 countries and regions worldwide, an increase of more than 20 from 2020. Trade concentration further declined, with the share of China’s imports and exports with its top ten trading partners in its total foreign trade dropping from 54.5% in 2020 to 47.7% in 2025. The share of China’s imports and exports with the United States in its total foreign trade decreased from 12.6% in 2020 to 8.8% in 2025. China’s imports and exports with emerging markets such as ASEAN, Africa, and Latin America increased significantly, with their shares rising from 14.7%, 4.0%, and 6.9% in 2020 to 16.6%, 5.5%, and 8.6% in 2025, respectively. The potential of China’s enormous market has been continuously unleashed. By steadily expanding imports, China has provided more development opportunities for countries worldwide and has remained the world’s second-largest import market for 17 consecutive years.

(III) Optimization and Upgrading of Trade Structure

China pursued innovation-driven development, promoted innovative trade development, and actively cultivated new drivers in the foreign trade sector, continuously improving the “innovation content” and “green content” of foreign trade. From 2021 to 2025, China’s high-tech product imports and exports grew by an average annual rate of 7.9%, accelerating to 11.4% in 2025, contributing nearly 60% to the overall growth of imports and exports that year. In 2025, exports of the “new trio”—electric vehicles, photovoltaic products, and lithium batteries—reached nearly RMB 1.3 trillion, a 3.5-fold increase from 2020. China supplied high-quality, affordable, and reliable products to the global market, with manufacturing product exports growing for nine consecutive years. In 2025, China’s exports of equipment manufacturing products reached RMB 16.0 trillion, up 9.2% from the previous year, accounting for 59.4% of total exports and driving overall export growth by 5.3 percentage points. China achieved notable results in expanding imports, with rapid growth in imports of high-tech and high-quality goods, and expanded imports of advanced technology equipment and key parts and components, facilitating the development of new quality productive forces and the modernization of the industrial system. In 2025, imports of mechanical and electrical products reached RMB 7.4 trillion, up 12.9% from 2020, of which imports of integrated circuits and automatic data processing equipment and their parts and components increased by 25.4% and 81.5%, respectively, compared to 2020.

(IV) Vigorous Development of New Foreign Trade Formats

Cross-border e-commerce became an important engine driving the growth of trade in goods, playing a unique role in empowering small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises, promoting industrial internationalization, and safeguarding supply chains. As of June 2024, China had established over 2,500 overseas warehouses, covering an area exceeding 30 million square meters. In 2025, China’s cross-border e-commerce imports and exports reached RMB 2.75 trillion, up 69.7% from 2020, with an average annual growth of 11.2% from 2021 to 2025, 4.1 percentage points higher than overall import and export growth. The development of national cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones was upgraded. By the end of 2025, the number had reached 178, covering 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) across the country. These comprehensive pilot zones supported and encouraged enterprises to go online and expand overseas. By the end of 2024, they had cumulatively nurtured over 120,000 various cross-border e-commerce business entities, of which approximately 16,000 were recognized as high-tech enterprises, and had helped create over 30,000 overseas brands.

II. Innovative Development of Trade in Services and Significant Enhancement of International Competitiveness

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China’s trade in services showed a positive trend of steady growth in total volume and continuous optimization in structure. Reforms and innovations in trade in services have continuously sped up, with the consolidated fundamental role of traditional trade in services and the steady growth of emerging trade in services.

(I) Steady Growth in the Scale of Trade in Services

With the continued deepening of opening-up in China’s services sector, service trade development faced unprecedented new opportunities, with the scale of trade in services reaching new highs. From 2021 to 2025, China’s total service imports and exports reached RMB 33.5 trillion, with an average annual growth of 12.1%. In 2024, China’s service imports and exports exceeded USD 1 trillion for the first time (RMB 7.5 trillion). In 2025, the figure rose to RMB 8.1 trillion, up 77.1% from 2020, and accounted for 15.1% of total foreign trade (the sum of imports and exports of goods and services), an increase of 2.7 percentage points from 2020. Of this, service exports reached RMB 3.6 trillion, up 87.4% from 2020, while imports stood at RMB 4.5 trillion, up 69.5%. By 2024, China’s service exports had ranked among the world’s top five for 15 consecutive years, and its service imports among the top three over the same period.

(II) Structural Optimization and Enhancement of Trade in Services

The comprehensive competitiveness of traditional trade in services continuously improved, while the scale of emerging trade in services steadily expanded, showcasing new competitive advantages. With the continuous optimization of entry-exit policies, strengthening of international transport services, and enhancement of infrastructure connectivity with BRI participating countries, traditional trade in services grew rapidly, reinforcing its role as a stabilizer. From 2021 to 2025, imports and exports of traditional services (transport, travel, and construction) grew at an average annual rate of 15.1%. In 2025, traditional service imports and exports reached RMB 4.6 trillion, accounting for 57.3% of total service imports and exports, up 7.1 percentage points from 2020. Among these, travel and transportation services showed the strongest growth momentum, with import and export values in 2025 reaching 2.2 times and 2.0 times their 2020 levels, respectively. In recent years, China has proactively seized new development opportunities for trade in services brought by digital technological progress, actively promoted digitalization, accelerated the cultivation of new growth drivers, and fostered the vigorous growth of digitally deliverable trade in services. From 2021 to 2025, China’s imports and exports of digitally deliverable services grew at an average annual rate of 8.7%. In 2025, China’s imports and exports of digitally deliverable services reached RMB 3.1 trillion. Among them, personal, cultural and entertainment services, along with telecommunications, computer and information services, experienced relatively rapid growth. The figures for 2025 were 2.0 times and 1.7 times the levels of 2020 for these two categories, respectively, growing at annual rates of 14.4% and 11.3% over the 2021–2025 period. Digital content trade achieved rapid development, with the “new trio” of cultural exports—online literature, online films/TV series, and online games—performing notably well. In 2024, the total number of Chinese digital reading works exported reached 808,000, up 6.0% from the previous year; the overseas market scale of online literature exceeded RMB 5 billion, with over 350 million overseas users.

III. Stable Growth and Quality Improvement in Utilizing Foreign Capital, with Continuously Improving Business Environment

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China’s comprehensive advantages in attracting foreign investment continued to strengthen. A series of reform measures to stabilize the economy, promote opening-up, and attract foreign investment continued to deliver results, attracting more multinational companies to invest in and expand their presence in China, with notable improvements in the quality of foreign capital utilization.

(I) Continuously High Scale in Foreign Investment

From 2021 to 2025, China established a cumulative total of 269,000 new foreign-invested enterprises, an increase of 66,000 over the 13th Five-Year Plan period. From 2021 to 2023, China’s actual use of foreign investment exceeded RMB 1 trillion for three consecutive years, reaching RMB 1,197.6 billion, RMB 1,232.7 billion, and RMB 1,133.9 billion, respectively. Starting in 2022, due to factors such as lackluster global economic growth, high debt levels, ongoing geopolitical conflicts, and complex adjustments in the economic and trade policies of major economies, global foreign direct investment continued to shrink, gradually impacting China. From 2023, China’s actual use of foreign investment began to decrease. In 2024 and 2025, China’s actual use of foreign investment was RMB 826.3 billion and RMB 747.7 billion, respectively, maintaining its position as the largest recipient of foreign investment among developing economies.

(II) A Shift in Foreign Investment Toward New and High-Quality Industry Structure and Regional Distribution

Foreign capital flowed intensively into China’s industrial sectors undergoing transformation and upgrading, with the structure of foreign capital utilization continuously shifting towards the new and the high-quality. The share of actual use of foreign investment in high-tech industries increased. In 2025, China’s actual use of foreign investment in high-tech industries reached RMB 241.8 billion, accounting for 32.3% of the total, up 3.7 percentage points from 2020. In 2025, the actual use of foreign investment in e-commerce services, medical equipment and device manufacturing, and aerospace equipment manufacturing increased by 75.0%, 42.1%, and 22.9%, respectively, from the previous year. China intensified its efforts to guide more foreign investment into the central and western regions. In 2025, the actual use of foreign investment in these regions accounted for 12.3% of the total, up 0.6 percentage points from 2020.

(III) Continuous Improvement of Foreign Investment Policies

China actively explored foreign investment management system reforms, making continuous reductions in foreign investment access restrictions and improvements in the business environment, significantly easing market access and actively improving the investment climate. China continued to implement the pre-establishment national treatment plus negative list management system for foreign investment, eliminated all restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector, further relaxed access restrictions in agriculture and services, and launched pilot programs in cloud computing, biotechnology, and wholly foreign-owned hospitals in selected regions. From the introduction and implementation of the “24 Measures for Foreign Investment” in 2023, to the multi-pronged efforts to build the “Invest in China” brand in 2024, and the launch of the Action Plan for Stabilizing Foreign Investment and the implementation of tax credit policies for profit reinvestment by foreign investors in 2025, the “quality” of policies to stabilize foreign investment continued to increase. Meanwhile, based on the Foreign Investment Law, China further optimized a fair and just market environment and continued to promote the facilitation of foreign investment, providing a “certainty oasis” for foreign enterprises in China.

IV. Regulated and Orderly Outward Investment with More Rational Global Layout

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, despite the pressure on global cross-border investment growth, China’s outward investment grew against the trend, with enterprises “going global” more steadily, making positive contributions to the stability of global industrial and supply chains and effectively promoting the economic and social development of host countries.

(I) Outward Investment Scale Remaining at the World’s Forefront

From 2021 to 2024, China’s total outward investment flows reached USD 711.4 billion, with an average annual growth of 5.7%. China’s position in the global investment market became increasingly solid. In 2024, China’s outward direct investment reached USD 192.2 billion, accounting for 11.9% of global flows that year, ranking among the world’s top three for 13 consecutive years, and maintaining a share of over 10% globally for nine consecutive years. By the end of 2024, China’s outward investment stock reached USD 3.1 trillion, accounting for 7.2% of the global total, ranking among the world’s top three for eight consecutive years. China’s investment in ASEAN grew relatively fast, with its scale expanding continuously. In 2024, China’s investment in the ten ASEAN countries reached USD 34.36 billion, 2.1 times that of 2020.

(II) Diversified Outward Investment Methods and Sectors

In terms of investment methods, reinvested earnings and equity investment were the primary modes of outward investment by Chinese enterprises. In 2024, reinvested earnings of overseas enterprises reached USD 77.9 billion, up 8.7% from 2020; new equity investment reached USD 73.1 billion, up 15.9%, the highest since 2016. In terms of investment sectors, China’s outward direct investment covered 18 industrial categories in the national economy, with investment in wholesale and retail trade, and mining growing rapidly. In 2024, outward direct investment in wholesale and retail trade reached USD 40.4 billion, up 75.5% from 2020; investment in mining reached USD 21.3 billion, 3.5 times that of 2020.

(III) Significant Expansion in the Scale of Overseas Contracted Projects

Strong demand for energy transition, infrastructure upgrading, and industrial capacity cooperation from emerging markets such as the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Latin America significantly expanded China’s overseas project business. In 2025, both the completed turnover and new contract value reached record highs. From 2021 to 2025, China’s cumulative completed turnover of overseas contracted projects reached USD 815.6 billion, with an average annual growth of 2.8%; the cumulative new contract value reached USD 1.3 trillion, with an average annual growth of 2.5%. In 2025, the completed turnover of overseas contracted projects reached USD 178.8 billion, up 7.7% from the previous year; new contract value reached USD 289.2 billion, up 8.2%.

V. Fruitful Achievements in International Economic and Trade Cooperation, Demonstrating Mutual Benefit and Win-Win Results

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China actively participated in global governance, promoted regional economic integration, and advanced high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative, opening its door ever wider to the world and providing opportunities for the world to share in China’s development dividends.

(I) New Achievements in Open Cooperation

China accelerated the construction of a globally oriented network of high-standard free trade areas. It negotiated and signed high-standard free trade agreements with more countries, promoted the signing and entry into force of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the world’s largest free trade agreement in terms of population coverage, economic and trade scale, and development potential, successively advanced and completed the upgrading negotiations of existing free trade agreements with partners such as Singapore and Peru, and comprehensively completed the negotiations for the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0. By the end of 2025, China had signed 24 free trade agreements with 31 countries and regions, with free trade partners spanning the globe. China further expanded its opening-up by formally applying to join high-standard agreements such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA), signed the Framework Agreement on Economic Partnership for Shared Development with 31 African countries, and actively built long-term, stable, and predictable institutional cooperation frameworks. China’s Pilot Free Trade Zones yielded abundant fruits, with the number of such zones increasing from 18 in 2020 to 22, covering China’s coastal, inland, and border areas. Over the five years, nearly 200 institutional innovation achievements were formed and replicated and promoted nationwide.

(II) New Achievements in Cooperation under the BRI

China’s cooperation with BRI participating countries entered a new stage of high-quality development. Economic and trade cooperation yielded remarkable results. In 2025, China’s imports and exports of goods with BRI participating countries reached RMB 23.6 trillion, 2.5 times the 2020 level. Its share in China’s total foreign trade exceeded 50% in 2024 and further increased to 51.9% in 2025. Investment cooperation continued to heat up. In 2024, direct investment by Chinese enterprises in BRI participating countries reached USD 51 billion, 2.3 times the 2020 level, accounting for 26.5% of China’s total outward investment. In 2025, new contract value of contracted projects signed by Chinese enterprises in BRI participating countries reached USD 258 billion, up 82.4% from 2020; completed turnover reached USD 152.6 billion, up 67.5%. The connectivity network continued to be strengthened, with the cumulative number of China-Europe Railway Express trips exceeding 120,000, the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor reaching 577 ports in 127 countries, and the “Maritime Silk Road” linking 150 ports in over 40 countries and regions. Landmark projects and “small and beautiful” public wellbeing projects progressed steadily, with the China-Laos Railway and the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway becoming operational.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China steadfastly accelerated the pace of high-standard opening-up, promoted high-quality development in international trade and economic cooperation, and made significant contributions to smoothing the national economic circulation and accelerating the establishment of a new development pattern. However, it must also be noted that external risks and challenges have increased significantly, with adverse factors such as disruptions to the international trade order, insufficient momentum for global economic growth, and frequent geopolitical conflicts intertwining and overlapping. Looking ahead, we must be guided by higher-level opening-up, actively expand independent opening-up, improve the quality and level of trade and investment cooperation, uphold the multilateral trading system, expand international circulation, and use opening-up to promote reform and development, sharing opportunities and achieving common development with other countries.

Note:

[1] Data on imports and exports of goods are sourced from the General Administration of Customs; data on imports and exports of services, actual use of foreign investment, and outward direct investment are sourced from the Ministry of Commerce.

Translate form: Website of the National Bureau of Statistics, June 3, 2026