Trade volume between China and Arab countries rose by 2.3 percent year-on-year in 2024, reaching $407.4 billion. This growth reinforces China’s position as the leading trading partner for the Arab world for several consecutive years. Chinese Assistant Minister of Commerce Yuan Xiaoming reported that Chinese exports to Arab nations totaled $206 billion, while imports from these countries reached $201.4 billion.
Yuan Xiaoming highlighted the significant advancements in economic and trade cooperation over recent years, with bilateral investments extending into sectors such as metal smelting, building materials manufacturing, cotton textile production, and aquaculture. Notably, Arab sovereign wealth funds and companies have ramped up their investments in China’s petrochemical, new energy, and emerging technology sectors. Infrastructure cooperation has also made remarkable strides, while emerging fields like e-commerce, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence demonstrate robust growth potential.
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Year-on-year performance
Additional data from China’s General Administration of Customs reveals that total trade between China and Arab League countries surged by over 820 percent from 2004 to 2023, reaching approximately 2.8 trillion yuan (around $390.14 billion). In the first four months of 2024 alone, trade climbed 3.8 percent year-on-year to historic highs, accounting for nearly 7 percent of China’s total foreign trade value during that period. The United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia represent the top six Arab trade partners of China, constituting about 85 percent of the total volume.
Chinese exports include automobiles and textiles, with notable year-on-year increases of 66.3 percent and 3.2 percent respectively between January and April 2024. Meanwhile, Arab countries are a significant source of energy imports for China, accounting for 38 percent of China’s energy product imports in early 2024. Additionally, trade between China’s private enterprises and Arab countries reached 497.14 billion yuan, reflecting a 16.3 percent increase year-on-year and making up over half of the total China-Arab trade volume in that timeframe.
