China's central region leads national trade growth with 19.5 percent surge in first five months

Foreign trade in China's central region surged 19.5 percent year over year in the first five months of 2026, outperforming the rest of the country, official customs data showed on Friday.

According to the latest official data released by the General Administration of Customs (GAC), the rapid growth in foreign trade in the central provinces was largely driven by an optimizing export structure.

High-tech products accounted for over 30 percent of the region's total shipments during the January-May period, becoming the primary engine for foreign trade momentum.

Anhui Province emerged as a top performer, posting a 32.9-percent jump in foreign trade in the first five months.

Driven by high-tech manufacturing clusters in the provincial capital of Hefei and the expanding global footprint of local companies, the city's high-tech exports have maintained robust double-digit growth since the start of 2026.

"Since the start of this year, Hefei City's exports of high and new technology products have grown rapidly, with teh exports of products such as liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, high-end automotive displays, and integrated circuits exceeded 70 billion yuan (about 10.33 billion U.S. dollars), up 70 percent year on year, which has emerged as a major force for enhancing both quality and performance in foreign trade," said Li Fuheng, an official at the Luzhou Customs Office under the Hefei Customs Administration.

Anhui has successfully transformed from an agricultural base into one of China's premier scientific and technological powerhouses, anchored by the provincial capital city of Hefei. The province leads the nation in emerging sectors like new energy vehicles (NEVs), artificial intelligence, quantum technology and advanced manufacturing.

From January to May, high and new technology and high-end manufacturing products are driving China's export growth.

The GAC data showed that the exports of mechanical and electrical products in China's central region grew 23.5 percent during the first five months, making up 67.6 percent of its total export value. Notably, the exports of the "new trio," namely electric vehicles, lithium batteries, and solar cells, soared by 85.1 percent, while the exports of high and new technology products rose 24.7 percent.

"At present, the robust global demand from industries such as artificial intelligence and the green, low-carbon transition is driving trade growth in related products, making China's exports to achieve innovation-driven and high-quality development. In the first five months, the exports of mechanical and electrical products lifted China's overall export growth by 11.1 percentage points, with the exports of green products, including lithium batteries and wind turbines, growing by around 40 percent," said Lyu Daliang, director of the GAC's Department of Statistics and Analysis.

China's central region leads national trade growth with 19.5 percent surge in first five months

Chinese stocks closed higher on Friday, mainly led by optimism over the Middle East situation and strong performances of gold stocks, market analyst Timothy Pope said.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index increasing 1.12 percent to 4,031.51 points. The Shenzhen Component Index closed 0.75 percent higher at 14,963.41 points.

The combined turnover of stocks covered by the two indices reached 3.24 trillion yuan (about 476 billion U.S. dollars), up from 2.55 trillion yuan on the previous trading day.

In market trading, non-ferrous metals, commercial aerospace, and power grid equipment shares were among the top gainers, while industrial gas and glass substrates sectors led the declines.

The ChiNext Index, tracking China's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, gained 0.5 percent to close at 3,830.35 points.

Pope said the gains in the Chinese shares came partly from the positive global oil market provoked by US President Donald Trump's remarks regarding the war with Iran.

"Chinese mainland stock markets actually saw their first weekly gain in a month, with the Shanghai Composite Index up marginally on last Friday’s close. Today the index was up 1.1 percent while the Shenzhen Component rose three quarters of one percent. There's renewed optimism, I have just been hearing over a potential peace deal between the US and Iran after comments by Donald Trump. But it is important to point out that he's made these sorts of statements before and it's come to nothing, but this time it did provoke another strong reaction from equity and oil markets," he said.

Pope said apart from the strong performance of sectors such as gold, the market gain linked with the recent move of U.S. tech giant Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX).

SpaceX has priced its initial public offering (IPO) at 135 U.S. dollars per share and raised 75 billion dollars through the sale of about 555.56 million shares, U.S. media reported Thursday.

"We also saw some flow on effects for gold stocks, gold prices were impacted and those were among the best performing and most popular stocks on the Chinese mainland. Today Zijin Mining Group adding 6.4 percent and the big financial institutions gaining as well. But we also saw investors hunting for proxies on the SpaceX IPO, which was true for the whole week. This is an interesting case because it's been widely reported now that SpaceX made a decision to exclude Chinese mainland and Hong Kong investors from the offering. The roadshow and IPO websites were not accessible on the Chinese mainland or in Hong Kong, reportedly at SpaceX's insistence. This is apparently the first time this has happened, and it's extra significant because this is going to be the biggest IPO the world has ever seen. So today we saw a hunt for stocks that might give Chinese investors some secondhand exposure to SpaceX," he said.

Optimism in Middle East, gold stocks lead share gain at China stock market on Friday: analyst