China’s trade surplus soared last year to a record as companies rushed to get goods out the door to make up for sluggish demand at home and ahead of the return of President-elect Donald Trump to the White House.
The surplus was an unprecedented $992 billion in 2024, according to a statement from the customs administration on Monday. That was 21% higher than the previous year and was driven by record exports and weak imports.
The value of shipments rose almost every month last year, pushing it above the 2022 highs during the pandemic. Strong demand from overseas has helped provide growth for a domestic economy that has struggled due to a continuing housing crisis and weak consumption, although that support now faces external challenges.
Exports rose almost 11% to $336 billion in December, the second-highest month on record and behind only December 2021, when Chinese firms saw a surge of pandemic-led demand. Outbound shipments for the whole of last year were worth $3.6 trillion.
Imports rose 1% last month and 1.1% for the whole year.
What Bloomberg economics says…
“Looking ahead to the coming months, we expect the tariff-driven front-loading will continue to boost exports, similar to the trend seen during the first US-China trade war.”
David Qu, economist
This may be one of the last high points for Chinese trade, at least directly with the US, with Trump promising to impose even higher tariffs on Chinese goods when he takes office next week. Punitive levies may push Chinese firms to divert their exports, flooding other markets with cheap goods and widening trade tensions.
“Exporters likely anticipated potential trade war to happen in 2025 and pushed delivery to avoid higher tariff down the road,” said Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management. “The key issue to watch is the policies from Washington DC in coming weeks, and the policy reactions from Beijing.”
Exports to the US rose to the highest in more than two years in December, hitting almost $49 billion and taking the total for the year to $525 billion.
Despite shipping record amounts of goods, Chinese exporters have been getting less money for their products, with export prices falling for more than a year as deflation inside China worsens and pushes down the cost of goods. The result is that the growth in the volume of Chinese trade has outpaced value, with total export volumes rising 7.3% through November according to the Ministry of Transport, faster than the 5.4% rise in values.
That can be seen in Shanghai port, which last year became the first anywhere in the world to handle the equivalent of more than 50 million 20-foot shipping containers. The port processed 51.5 million boxes last year, almost 5% more than in 2023 and 19% more than in 2019, the year before the pandemic.
