CBN丨Chinese private firms make progress in 2024 foreign trade

Hi everyone. I’m Stephanie LI.

Coming up on today’s program

• Private sector continued to lead China’s foreign trade last year;
• Shenzhen will double down on AI, robotics and low altitude economy.

Here’s what you need to know about China in the past 24 hours

China's private enterprises remained the leading category of foreign trade operators in the country for a sixth straight year, making notable achievements in foreign trade in 2024, according to the General Administration of Customs.

These achievements include the number of private enterprises that conducted import-export activities surpassing 600,000 for the first time in 2024, reaching 609,000 last year. Chinese private enterprises also emerged as the country's largest traders of high-tech products, with their share rising by 3 percentage points to 48.5 percent of total high-tech trade in 2024.

Additionally, private firms for the first time accounted for more than half of China's consumer goods imports, with their share climbing 2.8 percentage points to 51.3 percent -- notably exceeding 60 percent in categories such as cosmetics and fruit.

Chinese private enterprises continued to lead the country's foreign trade with transactions totaling 24.33 trillion yuan (US$3.4 trillion) last year, posting an 8.8 percent year-on-year increase and contributing 55.5 percent of the country's total foreign trade value.

Meanwhile, foreign-invested companies recorded 12.8 trillion yuan in trade last year, an increase of 1.5 percent, with momentum picking up in the second half of 2024. State-owned enterprises contributed 6.61 trillion yuan to foreign trade, playing a vital role in importing strategic commodities, including grain and energy resources.

The total number of companies with import-export activities across private, foreign-invested and state-owned sectors reached a record high of nearly 700,000 in 2024.

Greater Bay Area, Greater future

• Shenzhen vows to double down on industrial upgrade in artificial intelligence, robotics, low-altitude and aerospace by 2025, according to Mayor Qin Weizhong today in his government work report. According to the report, in 2024, the added value of these three industrial clusters increased by 12.7 percent, 15.9 percent and 26.4 percent, respectively. In 2025, Shenzhen will promote the acceleration of industrial upgrading towards high-end, innovative, and advanced implementation of the "AI+" action, and accelerate the core breakthroughs in fields such as algorithm, intelligent computing chips, embodied intelligence, high-level intelligent driving, and end-to-side lightweight models. In addition, Shenzhen will speed up the construction of the national low-altitude economic and industrial comprehensive demonstration zone, and to become the world's first city to achieve full coverage of integrated low-altitude network.
• Hong Kong’s “new industrialization” drive is taking shape as the first project approved under the SAR government’s industrial acceleration program was launched on Monday. This will invest HKD600 million in building 10 smart pharmaceutical production lines in the city.

Next on industry and company news

• Alibaba on Tuesday unveiled a preview of its next reasoning model QwQ-Max, which could rival industry-leading competitors including OpenAI’s o1 and DeepSeek’s R1. The Qwen team said that QwQ-Max-Preview displayed stronger and more versatile reasoning and problem-solving skills. The preview model has been made available for free on the Qwen chatbot website.
• Tesla announced today that it has begun rolling out software updates for Chinese Tesla car owners in stages, introducing an Autopilot feature for urban roads, to offer driver-assistance capabilities similar to those marketed as the Full Self-Driving in the US market. With the updates, it will guide Tesla cars to exit ramps and intersections according to the navigation route. 
• WeRide announced yesterday that the Chinese autonomous driving technology startup was approved to launch its latest generation of Robotaxis, the GXR, for fully unmanned paid ride-hailing services in Beijing. This is the GXR's first large-scale commercial deployment in China, following its launch on Uber in Abu Dhabi last December.
• Chinese eVTOL taxi maker EHang said today it inked a deal with JAC Motors and Guoxian Holdings to set up a joint venture in China's Hefei to build a manufacturing base for low-altitude aircraft, producing intelligent and autonomous eVTOL vehicles.
• TikTok and its Chinese counterpart Douyin became the first non-gaming app to surpass USD6 billion in annual in-app purchase revenue last year, according to a report by app intelligence firm Sensor Tower. TikTok generated USD1.9 billion in gross IAP income in the fourth quarter alone.
• Li Auto unveiled its first pure electric SUV, the i8, today, the Chinese NEV startup announced on Weibo. The new i series is the firm's third after the L and Mega.
• China's ocean economy rose 5.5 percent to 10.54 trillion yuan last year from the previous one, exceeding the 10-trillion-yuan threshold for the first time, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources. The service sector contributed 60 percent of the total gross ocean product (GOP).
• Harbin Ice-Snow World in China’s northeastern Heilongjiang province, the largest theme park of its kind in the world, is set to close tomorrow night as temperatures rise, organizers announced yesterday. The park had welcomed 3.47 million guests by Feb. 23, the 64th day of its 26th edition.

Earnings reports express

• China’s biggest travel management platform Trip.com Group said earnings jumped more than expected last quarter, with some parts of its business surpassing pre-pandemic levels, as international travel recovered. Fourth-quarter net income rose 69 percent to 2.2 billion yuan, while revenue increased 23 percent to 12.7 billion yuan, according to a Hong Kong stock exchange filing on Tuesday. For the full year, revenue climbed 20 percent to 53.4 billion yuan while earnings surged 72 percent to 17.1 billion yuan.
• Hong Kong Disneyland on Tuesday said it enjoyed its strongest ever business performance in the last fiscal year, with a record net profit of more than HKD830 million and highest ever attendance figure of 7.7 million. The theme park said its revenue grew by more than 50 percent year-on-year to HKD8.8 billion. To mark the 20th anniversary of Disneyland this year, the firm will roll out several initiatives for a year-long celebration starting in June, including a Pixar-themed entertainment show and a special edition of the Momentous show.

Wrapping up with a quick look at the stock market

• Chinese stocks fell on Tuesday. The benchmark Shanghai Composite slid 0.8 percent and the Shenzhen Component lost 1.2 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index also closed 1.3 percent lower, and the TECH index dropped 1.6 percent.

Executive Editor: Sonia YU

Editor: LI Yanxia

Host: Stephanie LI

Writer: Stephanie LI

Sound Editor: Stephanie LI

Graphic Designer: ZHENG Wenjing, LIAO Yuanni

Produced by 21st Century Business Herald Dept. of Overseas News.

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