China’s Trade Surplus Tops $1 Trillion in 10 Months as October Trade Grows 31.2% in Yuan

By The Edge Research Team

The Takeaway: China’s surplus on goods trade reached $1.04 trillion over January to October, on the customs administration’s dollar figures. Imports rose 23.6% in yuan terms against 17.6% for exports, so the surplus grew far more slowly than trade itself. In The Edge’s reading, the surplus is the by-product of a broad trade expansion, led on the export side by chips, not of exports growing faster than imports.

Goods trade grew 31.2% in yuan terms on the year in October, China’s General Administration of Customs said on Tuesday, lifting growth over January to October to 20.0%.

That took trade over January to October to 44.81 trillion yuan. Exports rose 17.6% over the period and imports 23.6%.

Both exports and imports have now grown at double-digit rates for 6 months running, the customs data show.

Lyu Daliang, director of the administration’s Department of Statistics and Analysis, said imports from more than 150 countries and regions grew over the period, with imports from ASEAN, Latin America and Africa at record highs for January to October. “China’s vast market continued to offer ‘China opportunities’ to the world,” he said, as reported by Xinhua.

The surplus passes $1 trillion as trade outgrows it

In dollar terms, which the administration publishes alongside its yuan tables, the surplus reached $1.04 trillion over January to October. It stood at $938.1 billion at the end of September, so October carried it past $1 trillion.

That is already above the same period of 2025, when the administration’s first figures put the surplus at $964.8 billion. On those figures, the dollar surplus grew by $77.8 billion, or 8.1%, by The Edge’s calculation.

In yuan terms, the surplus came to 7.16 trillion yuan. That is 4.3% more than in the same period of 2025, while total trade grew 20.0%.

The gap between those two rates defines the period. Imports have expanded faster than exports, so a much larger flow of trade is producing only a modestly larger surplus. Over January to October, imports were equal to 72.4% of exports.

On the import side, mechanical and electrical products rose 35.0% to 8.17 trillion yuan. Crude oil imports fell 15.1% by volume, while their value in yuan rose 0.2%.

For the whole of 2025, the administration’s preliminary figures, first published in January, put the surplus at $1.19 trillion. This year’s total is $146.4 billion short of that, with 2 months of data still to come.

The administration’s first figures for 2024 put that year’s surplus at $992.2 billion. This is therefore the second year running in which the surplus has passed $1 trillion.

Measured in dollars, trade grew 25.3% over the period, 5.3 points faster than in yuan. Set side by side, the two tables imply a yuan to dollar conversion ratio 4.2% lower than a year earlier, so each dollar of trade corresponded to fewer yuan. That is a ratio derived from the two sets of figures, not a measured exchange rate move.

October exports ease from September and the surplus narrows

October’s trade came to 4.87 trillion yuan, or $719.4 billion. In yuan terms, exports rose 28.7% on the year and imports 34.7%.

In dollar terms, October’s trade grew 37.9% on the year. Exports rose 35.2% and imports 41.6%.

Against September, exports fell 8.0% while imports slipped 2.5%.

That cut the monthly surplus by 21.3% from September, to 712.8 billion yuan. In dollars, October’s surplus was $105.3 billion.

The comparison base is also weak. In dollar terms, the administration’s first figures for October 2025 put trade at $520.6 billion, down 0.3% on the year. Exports fell 1.1% to $305.4 billion.

China’s goods trade in 2026 (billions; annual change, %)

Preliminary figures. January to October values are rounded to the nearest billion. “Annual” is the change in January to October values from a year earlier as the administration prints it.

Chips and machinery carry the export gains

Mechanical and electrical products, the broad machinery and electronics category, rose 25.2% in yuan terms over January to October. They made up 64.7% of exports, 3.9 points more than a year earlier.

Taken together, those goods supplied 87.0% of the year’s rise in exports.

In yuan terms, exports of integrated circuits more than doubled, rising 101.9% to 2.34 trillion yuan. That single line accounts for 30.3% of the rise in exports. In dollars, integrated circuit exports rose 111.1% to $341.1 billion.

The number of chips shipped rose only 3.2%, so almost all of that gain came from a higher value per chip.

Exports of memory components rose 132.5%, and those of the “new three” of electric vehicles, photovoltaic products and lithium batteries grew 46.5%, according to the customs data as reported by Xinhua.

High-tech product exports rose 41.6% in yuan terms, and automatic data processing machines, the customs category for computers and their parts, 53.6%.

Motor vehicle exports rose 49.6% to 9.74 million units. Their value grew 45.8% in yuan terms.

Wang Qing, chief macro analyst at Golden Credit Rating, said in comments carried by Xinhua on Tuesday that the global investment boom in artificial intelligence continued to push up prices of chips, other electronic components and computer parts, lifting export values. He also credited manufacturing upgrades for the competitiveness of new energy vehicles and high-tech goods.

ASEAN trade grows 24.2% as trade with the United States rises 6.3%

Trade with ASEAN grew 24.2% to 7.68 trillion yuan, more than China traded with the European Union or the United States. The bloc accounted for 17.1% of China’s trade.

Trade with the European Union rose 8.5% and with the United States 6.3%. The United States accounted for 8.0% of China’s trade.

Exports to the United States grew 7.3% and imports from it 3.3%.

Trade with Belt and Road countries rose 18.5% and made up 51.1% of the total.

The European Union, ASEAN and the United States together accounted for 83.5% of China’s surplus, with the European Union the largest share of the three.

The balance ran the other way with South Korea, where trade grew 56.6% as imports from Korea rose 71.4%. China also bought more from Japan than it sold there.

China’s trade with selected partners, January to October 2026 (billion yuan; annual change, %)

Preliminary figures. Net is the trade balance, exports minus imports. Partners are ranked by trade. Trade with Belt and Road countries, which overlap the groupings above, came to 22,884.3 billion yuan, with a balance of 3,375.2 billion yuan.

The September figures, set out here on 15 October, showed trade growth of 18.8% for January to September and a surplus of 6.46 trillion yuan for that period.

In The Edge’s reading, the $1 trillion surplus is the by-product of a broad expansion, led on the export side by chips, not of exports growing faster than imports: the surplus has grown far more slowly than trade, and October’s narrowed as exports eased faster than imports.

Method: figures are from the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China’s preliminary tables for October 2026 (in yuan and in dollars, by partner, by major export and by major import), published on 10 November 2026, with its September 2026, October 2025, December 2025 and December 2024 tables for earlier periods; memory, “new three” and machinery-share figures are as reported by Xinhua on 10 November 2026. The surplus growth in yuan and the shares of the export increase use year-earlier values derived from the administration’s printed growth rates; the surplus growth in dollars compares this year’s print with the first published figure for January to October 2025. These, the implied conversion ratio between the yuan and dollar tables, partner balances and shares are The Edge’s calculations.

Sources: General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China, Xinhua, The Edge.

Get Complimentary Insights

Follow us