On April 14th, the General Administration of Customs released data showing that in the first quarter of this year, China's import and export of goods reached 10.3 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.3%. Among them, exports amounted to 6.13 trillion yuan, an increase of 6.9%; Imports amounted to 4.17 trillion yuan, a decrease of 6%. In the first quarter, China's import and export scale reached a new historical high, exceeding 10 trillion yuan for eight consecutive quarters. This encouraging data continues the momentum of economic recovery after the epidemic and sets a good start for the Chinese economy in 2025. Upon closer inspection of this first quarter "report card" of China's foreign trade, it is not difficult to discover four trends behind it: firstly, the increased activity of business entities. The number of enterprises with import and export performance in the first quarter reached 529000, an increase of 33000 compared to the same period last year. Among them, the number of private enterprises reached a historic high of 455000, accounting for 86.1% of the total number of enterprises with import and export performance. At the same time, the import and export volume reached 5.85 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.8%, accounting for 56.8% of the total import and export value, an increase of 2.4 percentage points compared to the same period last year, becoming an important force driving the growth of foreign trade. Secondly, the space for external cooperation continues to expand and deepen. China has maintained strong resilience in its trade with traditional markets, achieving rapid growth in imports and exports to countries such as Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom. At the same time, the trade between emerging countries jointly building the "the Belt and Road" initiative and the emerging countries has grown gratifying, with the import and export volume reaching 5.26 trillion yuan, an increase of 2.2%, 0.9 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate, accounting for 51.1% of the total import and export value. Among them, imports and exports to ASEAN amounted to 1.71 trillion yuan, an increase of 7.1%; The import and export growth of the five Central Asian countries also reached 6.9%. Thirdly, the layout of regional openness continues to be optimized. The import and export of the central and western regions reached 1.84 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.7%, which was 7.4 percentage points higher than the overall national growth rate. The proportion of imports and exports in the country also reached 17.9%, an increase of 1.2 percentage points from the same period last year. This not only means that the foreign trade potential of the central and western regions has been further released, but also that the regional structure of China's foreign trade development has become more diversified, reducing dependence on a single region or market. The resilience and risk resistance of China's foreign trade are continuously enhancing. Fourthly, the "new content" of foreign trade has been further enhanced. With the accelerated development of new quality productivity, the export growth rate of high-tech products is significantly higher than the total growth rate. The fields of electronic information products, high-end equipment, biomedicine, etc. continue to increase, and the import and export of equipment manufacturing products has grown by 7.6%, occupying half of the foreign trade import and export market. At the same time, the export scale of independent brand products has been increasing year by year, and the proportion continues to rise. In the first quarter, it continued to grow by 10.2%, and its proportion in the total export value has further increased to 22.8%. This reflects the shift in China's high value-added manufacturing industry to focus more on brand building and promotion beyond product quality. By improving product quality, design, and service, it aims to create internationally influential brands and gain higher product added value and market share through brand value. The author has had the opportunity to conduct continuous research on industrial manufacturing enterprises in Ningbo, Foshan, and other places throughout the year, and has had ample personal experience of the source of China's manufacturing industry's competitiveness in foreign trade exports. In addition to the continuous improvement of automation levels represented by CNC machine tools and robots, Chinese export enterprises also attach great importance to communication with customers. Many companies retain old workers, old machine tools, and old workshops. Once customers have any "ingenious ideas", these experienced and highly understanding technical workers can quickly "polish" samples and provide feedback to customers as quickly as possible; Once the design and process discussions are completed, it can be seamlessly integrated into CNC machine tools and mass production immediately. It is the accumulation of Chinese foreign trade enterprises and global customers over the years that has created the growth and optimization of China's total foreign trade volume and structure. The recent surge in the "heat" of the Chinese economy has led foreign institutions such as HSBC, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley to raise their expectations for China's economic growth. The forecast range for the year-on-year growth rate of real gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2025 is 5.0% to 5.4%. In the era of globalization and informatization, China adheres to the principles of free trade, equal transactions, and benefiting people's livelihoods, opening its doors to do business with the world. This not only makes China's industrialization process "faster, better, and more cost-effective", but also makes import and export trade one of the most important growth engines for China and the global economy. Since entering the 21st century, facing multiple global economic downturns, China's foreign trade imports and exports have always been an important ballast for China and even the global economy, ensuring the stable development of countries around the world. Today, the pattern of Chinese enterprises "going global" has been formed, and the strong foreign trade data is just one of the manifestations of China's overall economic structural transformation and upgrading, while pursuing global cooperation for mutual benefit and win-win among countries. In the face of external turbulence risks, China will continue to steadfastly promote high-level opening up to the outside world, support institutions represented by the WTO that defend international trade rules and international fairness and justice, and as a truly responsible major country, make greater contributions to the well-being of all mankind. (Xinhua News Agency) Article | Xu Weihong, Chief Economist of China Institute for the Transformation of Invention Achievements