Beijing, July 14th, China National Radio – According to customs statistics, in the first half of 2026, China’s total value of goods trade imports and exports reached 25.47 trillion yuan, up 16.9% year-on-year. Among them, exports reached 14.73 trillion yuan, increasing by 13.4% year-on-year. Imports reached 10.74 trillion yuan, with an increase of 22.1%. The overall foreign trade achieved stable and relatively fast growth.
The structure of export products has been continuously optimized and upgraded. In the first half of the year, the export value of mechanical and electrical products reached 9.36 trillion yuan, increasing by 20.1% year-on-year. It accounted for 63.5% of the total export value, up by 3.5 percentage points compared with the same period last year. The export of high-tech products reached 3.26 trillion yuan, with a growth rate as high as 39%. The export of self-owned brands increased by 25.4% year-on-year, with the proportion rising by 2.4 percentage points. The added value of products and brand competitiveness have steadily strengthened.
Wang Jun, the deputy director of the General Administration of Customs, introduced at the press conference on the same day that in recent years, the development pace of China’s robot industry has accelerated, the export scale has continued to expand, and it has been widely applied in many fields of global production and life. At present, the main export categories include industrial robots, surgical robots, cleaning robots and intelligent bionic robots, etc. Among them, intelligent bionic robots and cleaning robots have added exclusive tax numbers this year, which is equivalent to having an “exclusive mark” for international trade. This can make statistics more accurate and more intuitively show the development trends of the industry.
The highlights of robot exports in the first half of the year can be observed from three aspects: First, the technological iteration of industrial robots has accelerated, and their international competitiveness has significantly increased, providing assistance for the intelligent transformation of global manufacturing. In 2025, China’s industrial robot exports will surpass imports for the first time, officially becoming a net exporter. In the first half of this year, the export volume reached 6.29 billion yuan, increasing by 18.6% year-on-year. The products were sold to 141 countries and regions around the world. Secondly, surgical robots have gained more recognition in the international market, and domestic intelligent medical equipment is bringing convenience to more overseas patients. In the first half of the year, the export value of surgical robots reached 480 million yuan, increasing by 3.3 times year-on-year. The number of countries and regions covered by exports rose from 23 in the same period last year to 49. Thirdly, cleaning robots have long entered ordinary households. Humanoid robots, robot dogs, bionic fish and birds and other intelligent bionic products are also accelerating their expansion into overseas markets. In the first half of the year, the combined export of these two types of products reached 18.09 billion yuan.
With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, the import and export of related products are full of vitality. In the first half of the year, the total import and export volume of computing power hardware such as electronic components and computer parts reached 5.13 trillion yuan, increasing by 56.6% year-on-year. The update speed of smart products such as AI glasses, AI translators, and mechanical exoskeletons is accelerating, and various innovative achievements are constantly emerging.
Against the backdrop of the global green and low-carbon transformation, the international market’s demand for new energy and green products is highly consistent with China’s industrial advantages. In the first half of the year, the exports of green energy products such as lithium batteries and wind turbine generators increased by 37.6% and 35.6% respectively. The export growth rates of green travel products such as electric vehicles, railway electric locomotives, electric motorcycles and bicycles reached 68.7%, 45.1% and 31.5% respectively.
Exports of specialized equipment, ships and Marine engineering equipment also performed outstandingly, reaching 540.24 billion yuan and 214.99 billion yuan respectively in the first half of the year, representing year-on-year growth of 24.4% and 19.9%. From intelligent excavators, heavy-duty gas turbines to offshore operation platforms, an increasing number of large-scale domestic equipment are playing a significant role in key projects of various countries.
Post time: Jul-29-2026
