China’s trade for the first six months of 2022 jumped to $2.94 trillion (19.8 trillion yuan), a 9.4% increase compared to the first six months of 2021, China’s General Administration of Customs reports. Comparing the first six months of 2022 to the first half of 2021, China’s exports shot up 13.4% to $1.65 trillion, and its imports rose by 3.4% to $1.29 trillion.
China’s trade growth was led by exports, and a preliminary look at the data shows manufacturing and industrial goods constituted well over 50% of China’s exports.
China’s trade growth dumbfounded and far exceeded “expert predictions”: Its trade grew by 0.1% in April over March; 9.5% in May, relative to April; and 14.3 % in June over May. What surprised most is that China was able to accomplish this despite taking the world’s most rigorous measures to combat an outbreak of the COVID-19 Omicron variant in Shanghai (its largest manufacturing city), which ran from Feb. 28 to July 20. Beijing’s health authorities responded with mass testing and a strict lockdown in Shanghai in its zero-tolerance COVID policy. The outbreak also spread to Beijing, Guangdong, and Hunan.
