China’s exports surged by 36.3% year on year in September to $447.18 billion, providing a boost to the world’s second-largest economy as it contends with slowing growth.
The rise accelerated from a 25% increase in August and represented China’s strongest monthly export growth since 2021, when trade figures were distorted by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and strict lockdowns.
Technology-related goods were a major driver. Semiconductor exports more than doubled, rising by over 108%, while shipments of automatic data processing machines increased by almost 55%.
Imports also gathered pace, climbing 31% from a year earlier compared with 28.2% in August, figures from China’s General Administration of Customs showed.
“High-tech demand, supported by the global and domestic AI upcycle, remained the key driver, while China’s pricing and supply-chain competitiveness in other major export categories also helped sustain the momentum,” Taylor Wang, an economist at HSBC in Hong Kong, said in a note to clients.
China’s export markets
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations was China’s largest export market in September by a wide margin. Shipments to the bloc rose by more than 52% to $81.7 billion.
Exports to the European Union increased by 25.3% to $60.15 billion, while those to the United States climbed by 39.6% to $47.88 billion.
For the first nine months of the year, China’s exports rose 21.3% to $3.37 trillion. Imports increased by 27.5% to $2.43 trillion, leaving a trade surplus of $938.1 billion.
China has long relied on state-led investment and exports to support its economy, but it is seeking additional sources of growth as its population falls, the property market deflates and domestic consumption remains weak compared with advanced economies.
The International Monetary Fund expects China’s economy to expand by 4.5% in 2026, which would be its slowest growth since 1990 apart from the exceptional Covid pandemic years.
“The strong export growth should keep China’s growth on track to achieve its growth target of 4.5-5% for 2026,” Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING, said.
“Nonetheless, growth remains quite unbalanced, with domestic data quite soft in comparison,” Song added. “It will be important to rebalance growth over the medium term if China is to achieve its longterm growth targets.”
