Main export partners of China in 2016

About This Statistic

The statistic shows the export partners for China in 2016, sorted by their respective export share. That year, the United States had imported approximately 18.4 percent of the Chinese export volume.

Distribution of Chinese exports – additional information

In 2014, China exported goods with a total value of more than 2.3 trillion U.S. dollars and imported goods with a value of 1.96 trillion U.S. dollars, making it the leading export and second largest import country worldwide. In 2015, China was ranked second among the countries with the largest gross domestic product, following the United States.

China’s economic prosperity is closely related to its status as the world’s factory. Since 2005, exports contributed more than 20 percent to China’s gross domestic product. However, it can also be seen that the share of exports to GDP is also on the decline. Nonetheless, China maintains a trade surplus of about 382 billion U.S. dollars and remained first among countries with the highest trade surplus worldwide in 2014. While China displays high growth potential for service exports such as tourism, transportation, banking and financial services, as well as insurance and education services, the main focus of China’s export industry remains merchandise. In 2013, merchandise exports made up 11.74 percent of all global global exports, while Chinese service based exports contributed only 4.41 percent.

global exports include clothing, automatic data processing machines and components and mobile and car telephones. Vehicles are among the fastest-growing Chinese exports. The export value of vehicles increased from approximately 5.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2009 to 13.81 billion U.S. dollars in 2014. Meanwhile, China mainly imported items such as machinery, oil, mineral fuels, metal ores and motor vehicles. Currently, China’s most important import partners include from the European Union, the United States, Japan and from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.