China’s July export figures defy slowing economic growth, buoyed by surging semiconductor shipments and sustained global demand for Chinese electronic goods, particularly in AI infrastructure sectors.
China’s trade figures for July showed the country’s export machine still running strongly, even as growth eased from June’s blistering pace. Customs data released on August 7 showed exports rose 23.9% from a year earlier to $397.85 billion, comfortably ahead of economists’ expectations, while imports climbed 27.5% to $285.35 billion. That left China with a trade surplus of $112.5 billion for the month, according to CNBC’s reporting on the customs figures.
The latest numbers suggest that global demand for Chinese goods remains resilient despite slower growth in some traditional engines of the world’s second-largest economy. June had already brought a sharp rebound, with exports rising 5.8% and imports up 1.1%, while shipments to the United States fell 16.1% amid continuing trade friction, CNBC reported at the time. In July, exports to the US increased about 17% from a year earlier, while shipments to the European Union also rose 16%, underlining how China has kept goods moving even as tensions with major trading partners persist.
A major driver appears to be the global build-out of artificial intelligence infrastructure. Chinese exports of integrated circuits have nearly doubled this year through the end of July, and semiconductor exports alone surged 117% in July, according to the customs data cited by CNBC. That trend has helped cushion the impact of US restrictions on advanced AI chip sales to China, introduced in 2023 and aimed at limiting access to high-end semiconductor technology. Analysts have argued that the shift is feeding demand across the wider electronics supply chain, not just in AI-specific hardware.
Trade with South Korea stood out in particular. China’s exports to South Korea rose 46.6% year on year to $18.12 billion, while imports from South Korea jumped 97.78% to $31.05 billion, according to the figures reported by the Chinese business publication Yicai and carried by the lead report. Yicai linked the surge to expanding investment in AI data centres and servers in China, as well as a recovery in electronics manufacturing, which has lifted demand for memory chips including high-bandwidth memory, DRAM and NAND flash. Pinpoint Asset Management chief economist Zhang Zhiwei said the export momentum was likely to continue into the third quarter.
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