As China's foreign trade upscaled to 2.1 trillion yuan (about 290 billion U.S. dollars) in 2024, new technologies, and innovation have been vital motives.
In 2024, China's foreign trade structure was upgraded, with high-tech products accounting for a larger share of total exports.
By using AI technologies to optimize the motion control algorithm, a robot company in Hangzhou City of east China's Zhejiang Province has taught its robot dogs to do acrobatics. These robot dogs have gained a global reputation, and have occupied over 60 percent of the global market.
"By introducing AI reinforcement training, our robot dogs have performed excellently. For example, now it is standing on four feet, and we can order it to do headstands with two feet. For actions like this, developing its motion control coding in traditional ways would take a long time, but now, with AI reinforcement training, robot dogs can perform increasingly better," said Huang Jiawei, chief market director of the robot company.
A graphic tablet company in Shenzhen City, south China's Guangdong Province, achieved a similar success. By investing in research and development, the company has managed to upgrade the precision and stability of its products with 54 patents, and now is among the best-sellers on e-commerce platforms in the United States and United Arab Emirates. Last year the company's total exports reached 340 million yuan (about 46.4 million U.S. dollars).
"This type of graphic tablet is quite popular on overseas e-commerce platforms, and its sales surged by 40 percent last year," said Xu Hefeng, president of the Shenzhen company.
According to statistics, China's high-technology exports have witnessed a rapid increase, with new energy vehicles (NEVs), 3D printers, and industrial robots ranking among the best performers, achieving an increase of 13.1 percent, 32.8 percent, and 45.2 percent, respectively.
"To sum up China's foreign trade performance in 2024, it's safe to say that its quality has improved, and scale expanded. China's contribution to global trade growth is growing steadily. Our trade structure is being constantly upgraded, and our innovation ability improving. Innovation has driven China's foreign trade up," said Liang Ming, head of the Foreign Trade Institute under the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.
Innovation, new technologies boost China's foreign trade in 2024
