Chinese exports grow by more than a third in October on the back of global hunger for AI hardware
After ten months the trade surplus has already passed the thousand billion dollar mark, a month earlier than last year.
China built up a trade surplus of 1.04 trillion dollars in the first ten months of this year, according to figures published by Chinese customs this morning. That means the country has passed the symbolic trillion mark a month earlier than in 2025, when the full-year surplus reached a record 1.2 trillion, AFP reports. Exports in October came to 412.3 billion dollars, 35.2 percent more than a year earlier.
That beat the 33.5 percent economists had expected in a Reuters poll, although growth slowed slightly compared with September. Imports rose even faster, by 41.6 percent to 307.1 billion dollars, against forecasts of 32 percent. The driving force is demand for AI products such as chips, data centre servers and networking equipment. Exports to the United States rose by 32.9 percent in October.
For Europe, the surplus with the EU stands out: it rose to 310.7 billion dollars over ten months, compared with 241.6 billion a year earlier, according to AFP. Trade talks between Brussels and Beijing did produce an agreement to limit exports of Chinese hybrid cars to Europe. China is targeting growth of 4.5 to 5 percent this year. Xi Jinping and Donald Trump are due to meet at the APEC summit in Shenzhen on 18 and 19 November.