Hunan's foreign trade achieved rapid growth in the first quarter (Q1), with a total import and export value of 179.38 billion CNY, up 58.3% year on year. It was announced by the Changsha Customs on April 17, 2023.

Hunan had frequent economic and trade exchanges with 222 countries and regions in the first three months of this year. Among them, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the United States of America, and the European Union (EU) were Hunan's top three largest trading partners, with import and export values of 41.15 billion CNY, 18.95 billion CNY, and 15.48 billion CNY respectively. Hunan's foreign trade with countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) increased by 93.1% to 72.05 billion CNY, accounting for 40.2% of the provincial total and up 7.2 percentage points compared with the same period last year. Trade between Hunan and the other Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) members reached 60.74 billion CNY, an increase of 61.5%.

The import and export structure has been continuously optimized, and the export of new advanced products has surged significantly. Between January and March, Hunan exported 56.13 billion CNY of mechanical and electrical products, an 85.3% jump from the same period in 2022 and accounting for 44.7% of the provincial total export value. The "three new types" of products – electric vehicles, lithium batteries, and solar cells – became Hunan's new popular exports, with a total export value of 1.41 billion CNY, growing by 82.1%.

Among the 13 cities and one prefecture provincewide, Changsha City gained a combined import and export value of 84.73 billion CNY in Q1, accounting for nearly half of the provincial total. Yueyang, Chenzhou, Yongzhou, and Huaihua outperformed the rest ones.

Hunan's foreign trade has witnessed a remarkable growth trend since the beginning of this year. More than 70% of the sample companies in Hunan maintained a positive attitude towards the future export situation, and the corporate confidence has generally rebounded, according to the survey results of the monthly export pilot index conducted by the General Administration of Customs this March.

Why has Hunan's foreign trade risen by leaps and bounds? According to the Changsha Customs' interpretation, the reasons are as follows:

- Rapid growth of new markets and new drivers. For example, Hunan's total imports and exports to emerging markets such as the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa totaled 41.34 billion CNY, a year-on-year increase of 82%. The "three new types" of products registered speedy growth, driving up the overall export growth rate by 0.9 percentage points.

- Prominent spillover effect of advanced manufacturing industry clusters. The import and export of construction machinery and rail transit increased by 147% and 136.1% year on year in the first three months, respectively.

- Remarkable progress of the comprehensive bonded zones construction. The emerging business formats such as cross-border e-commerce have become new engines for the growth of foreign trade in Hunan Province.