General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China (GACC) announced that in the past five months of 2023, China’s imports and exports of mechanical and electrical products totaled US$1163.81billion, 5.8 percent lower than a year prior. The exports increased by 1.6 percent to US$810.65 billion, and the imports dropped by 19.2 percent to US$353.16 billion. The trade balance of mechanical and electrical products expanded by 26.9 percent to US$457.48 billion in surplus.
In May, exports of mechanical and electrical products decreased by 1.3 percent to US$164.2billion. The exports of household appliances, general mechanical equipment and other key traditional industries in the mechanical and electrical field increased. The demand for electric vehicles has led to an increase of 93 percent and 123.5 percent in export volume and value of motor vehicles, respectively, with the increase for 32 consecutive months, and the exports of motor vehicles in May exceeded that of mobile phones for the first time.
In May, the sluggish demand for electronic information products led exports of mobile phones, automatic data processing machines and parts thereof, and integrated circuits to continue to decline. The export volume and value of mobile phones decreased by 15.6 percent and 25 percent respectively, and the export volume decreased continuously for 12 months; The exports of automatic data processing machines and parts thereof decreased by 10.8 percent, marking the 10th consecutive month of year-on-year decline; The exports of integrated circuits decreased by 25 percent, marking the 11th consecutive month of negative growth.
In May, the imports of mechanical and electrical products decreased by 13.3 percent to US$72.08 billion, marking the 15th consecutive month of year-on-year decline. The imports of integrated circuits, computers, automobiles and spare parts, and LCD display modules has generally decreased. The weak demand in the downstream industry led to a continued downturn in integrated circuits. Previously, the imports of integrated circuits have been continuously reduced for 12months. In the past five months of 2023, the imports of integrated circuits decreased by 24.2 percent to US$131.9 billion, and the proportion of integrated circuits in China's total goods imports accordingly decreased from 15.3 percent in 2022 to 12.7 percent at present.

Data Source: www.customs.gov.cn