Preliminary data: China's current account surplus in the first quarter was US $39.2 billion

The State Administration of Foreign Exchange announced the preliminary data of China's balance of payments for the first quarter of 2024 on May 10. Data shows that in the first quarter of 2024, China's balance of payments will remain basically balanced. Among them, the current account surplus was US $39.2 billion, 0.9% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the same period, which continued to be in a reasonable equilibrium range.

On the whole, in the first quarter of 2024, China's current account surplus was US $39.2 billion, including a trade surplus in goods of US $121.1 billion, a trade deficit in services of US $61 billion, a primary income deficit of US $24.3 billion, and a secondary income surplus of US $3.4 billion.

Wang Chunying, deputy director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange and press spokesman, said that in the first quarter, China's export of goods reached US $751.1 billion, up 2% year on year; Imports reached US $630 billion, up 3% year on year. This is mainly because China's economy has made a good start since 2024. With the deepening of industrial transformation and upgrading, new growth points, new formats and new models of trade have been constantly expanded, and the trade structure has been constantly optimized.

At the same time, two-way direct investment was carried out in an orderly manner. In the first quarter, the net outflow of China's foreign equity based direct investment was US $25.7 billion, and the "going global" of enterprises was stable and orderly; The net inflow of equity based direct investment in China was US $19 billion, including US $21 billion of new capital inflows, indicating that foreign investment in China remained generally stable.

Wang Chunying believes that the complexity, severity and uncertainty of the external environment have increased significantly, but China will continue to provide fundamental support for China's basic balance of payments by accelerating the construction of a new development pattern, focusing on high-quality development, with a stable economic foundation, many advantages, strong resilience and great potential. (Reporter Liu Kaixiong)