China’s exports surge amid AI-driven demand

Exports grew by 36.3 percent in September, the biggest leap since the COVID-19 pandemic.

China’s exports surged by more than one-third in September, a boost to the world’s second-largest economy as it faces slowing growth.

Exports grew by 36.3 percent last month year-on-year to reach $447.18bn, accelerating from a 25 percent gain in August, government figures released on Wednesday show.

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The leap marked the biggest monthly rise in exports since 2021, when China’s trade figures were skewed by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and stringent lockdowns.

Tech-related trade led the growth, with semiconductor exports surging more than 108 percent and shipments of automatic data processing machines jumping nearly 55 percent.

Imports increased 31 percent year-on-year, up from 28.2 percent in August, according to the figures from the General Administration of Customs.

“High-tech demand, supported by the global and domestic AI upcycle, remained the key driver, while China’s pricing and supply-chain competitiveness in other major export categories also helped sustain the momentum,” Taylor Wang, an economist at HSBC in Hong Kong, said in a note to clients.

China’s total exports in the first nine months of the year rose 21.3 percent to $3.37 trillion, while imports gained 27.5 percent to $2.43 trillion.

The gap between exports and imports in the first three quarters gave China a trade surplus of $938.1bn.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was China’s biggest export market by a wide margin, with exports rising more than 52 percent in September to $81.7bn.

“Nonetheless, growth remains quite unbalanced, with domestic data quite soft in comparison,” Song said.