China-ASEAN trade maintains sound momentum in Jan-Sept

China

China-ASEAN trade maintains sound momentum in Jan-Sept

2025-10-31 17:25 Last Updated At：11-01 01:07

China's trade with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) maintained sound momentum in the first nine months of this year, the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) said on Friday.

In the January to September period, the CCPIT approved Chinese exhibition organizers and led over 5,000 enterprises to attend 152 exhibition projects across ASEAN countries, with the exhibition areas totaling 69,000 square meters, the national foreign trade and investment promotion agency said at a press conference.

In the first three quarters, China's national trade promotion system issued a total of 242,500 certificates of origin involving 7.08 billion U.S. dollars under the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) free trade agreement, up 25.57 percent and 24.01 percent, respectively, from a year earlier.

The growth has driven China's trade with fellow RCEP member countries, including ASEAN countries, demonstrating sound momentum of development, said the CCPIT.

The RCEP comprises 15 Asia-Pacific countries, including 10 member states of the 11-nation ASEAN grouping -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- and their five trading partners, namely China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.

China has been ASEAN's largest trading partner for 16 consecutive years, while ASEAN has been China's top trading partner for the past five years.

China remains world's largest online retail market for 13th straight year

China has remained the world's largest online retail market for a 13th consecutive year, with its digital consumption exceeding 23.8 trillion yuan (about 3.39 trillion U.S. dollars), official data shows.

The figure was released at a national e-commerce work conference held from Tuesday to Wednesday.

The conference said that China's e-commerce sector has achieved solid gains in high-quality development over the past five years, emerging as a new source of momentum to foster new quality productive forces and playing an important role in advancing the country's new development paradigm.

Despite rising external uncertainties, China has continued to expand its win-win cooperation, increasing the number of Silk Road e-commerce cooperation partner countries to 36.

E-commerce has become a major engine for job creation and industrial upgrading. Employment in the sector has surpassed 78 million, and express delivery volumes have seen an average annual growth of nearly 20 percent over the past five years.

Software and information services linked to cloud computing and big data have also expanded rapidly.

The conference outlined the Ministry of Commerce's e-commerce policy priorities for 2026, including strengthening innovation-driven growth, improving the country's development environment, and expanding international cooperation.