A view of the Meijiang International Convention and Exhibition Center in Tianjin, the venue of the SCO Summit 2025 Photo:VCG

In the first three quarters of this year, China's imports and exports with other member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) reached 2.75 trillion yuan ($386.52 billion), a year-on-year increase of 2.4 percent, setting a new record for the same period in history, Lv Daliang, a spokesperson of the General Administration of Customs of China said on Monday. 

Lv said that, over the past 24 years since its establishment, the SCO has achieved fruitful outcomes in cooperation across various fields. China's total imports and exports with other SCO member states have grown from around 1 trillion yuan at the inception of the organization to 3.65 trillion yuan in 2024.

It is evident that the accelerated development of the China-Europe Railway Express, the extension of international road transport routes, and the expansion of air cargo networks have all contributed to deepening trade cooperation within the SCO.

In the first three quarters of this year, China's imports and exports with other members of the SCO by railway transport exceeded 360 billion yuan, accounting for 70 percent of the total value of China's railway transport imports and exports, Imports and exports by road and air transport also increased by 10.9 percent and 37 percent, respectively, according to Lv.

In the first three quarters, the number of Chinese enterprises with actual import and export transactions with other member states exceeded 190,000, an increase of approximately 8,500 compared to the same period last year. It is reported that since the beginning of this year, the number of SCO merchants traveling to Yiwu, East China's Zhejiang Province, for procurement and entrepreneurship has exceeded 100,000, an increase of over 10,000 year-on-year.

China has actively promoted market access for agricultural products. In the first three quarters of this year, China imported 74.3 billion yuan worth of agricultural products from other members of SCO, an increase of 6.1 percent. 

A growing number of distinctive agricultural and food products from other member states of SCO have made their way into the daily lives of Chinese consumers. During the same period, China's exports of agricultural machinery, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices to other member states increased by 51.9 percent, 14.7 percent, and 13.4 percent, respectively, according to Lv.

Global Times