Guangdong imports surge 40.7% year-on-year in July

Guangdong province reached an import volume of 423.46 billion yuan ($62.81 billion) in July, surging by 40.7 percent year-on-year and marking five straight months of monthly growth exceeding 30 percent.

Guangdong Customs released a statement on Wednesday, wherein they attributed the dramatic increase to production and consumption and detailed other import trends during the first seven months of the year.

Driven by ever-growing demand across the AI industrial chain, Guangdong's imports of integrated circuits hit 1.07 trillion yuan, jumping 48.6 percent year-on-year and accounting for 39.6 percent of the province's total imports.

Computer and computer component imports reached 391.22 billion yuan, rising 77.9 percent year-on-year, while imports of copper amounted to 39.89 billion yuan, up 36.5 percent year-on-year, the statement said. Meanwhile, imports of daily consumer goods also saw remarkable increases, with edible vegetable oil soaring 190 percent, beef 38 percent, and milk powder 9.5 percent year-on-year.

The strong import demand has helped the foreign trade-reliant province achieve a trade volume of 6.49 trillion yuan between January and July, up year-on-year 20.5 percent and representing 21.6 percent of the country's total, the statement said.

The province sold 3.8 trillion yuan worth of products abroad while purchasing goods valued at 2.69 trillion yuan from the rest of the world, up 10.8 percent and 37.4 percent, respectively.

In July alone, Guangdong's total trade volume came to 1.01 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19 percent. It had crossed the one-trillion-yuan threshold in June as well.

ASEAN remained Guangdong's largest trading partner, with its bilateral import and export volume reaching 1.02 trillion yuan in the seven months ending July, a year-on-year increase of 14.2 percent.

Guangdong also saw increases in trade volumes with the EU (up 5.2 percent), the United States (up 3.8 percent), the Republic of Korea (up 44.3 percent), Africa (up 19.8 percent), India (up 16.5 percent), and Australia (up 33.2 percent).