Surpassing the Trillion-Yuan Threshold! Trade Between China and ASEAN Grows Strongly, Textile Cross-Border Industry Chain Enters a Golden Era
As China and ASEAN continue to deepen their bilateral economic and trade cooperation, regional trade has entered a whole new stage of development. In 2025, China-ASEAN bilateral trade hit a historic milestone, surpassing the $1 trillion mark for the first time, reaching $1.05 trillion for the year, with a steady year-on-year growth of 7.4%. This landmark figure not only sets a new record for regional trade cooperation, but also provides a solid and broad platform for the textile and apparel industry, which heavily relies on cross-border supply chains and regional market circulation. It has become a key indicator for textile exporters, clothing manufacturers, cross-border buyers, and retail supply chain teams planning to tap into the Southeast Asian market.
The foundation for stable bilateral trade cooperation has long been firmly established. According to official data and statements made publicly by Yan Dong, Vice Minister of Commerce, China has remained ASEAN’s largest trading partner for 17 consecutive years, while ASEAN has also been China’s largest trading partner for six consecutive years. The two-way dependency continues to rise, forming a mutually beneficial and symbiotic trade pattern.
Entering 2026, the momentum of bilateral trade growth has further accelerated. During the first three quarters, trade activity continued to be released, with China-ASEAN trade totaling USD 744.41 billion from January to July alone, representing a significant year-on-year increase of 24.7%. This scale accounts for 21.8% of China’s total foreign trade during the same period, and nearly half of the foreign trade share highlights the core strategic position of the ASEAN market in China’s overall foreign trade layout, while also providing a solid market support for the expansion of cross-border business in the textile industry.
As one of the core pillar industries of China-ASEAN cross-border trade, the textile and apparel industry is a typical representative of regional industrial division and cross-border supply chain collaboration, with two-way trade flows continuing to be robust. For a long time, ASEAN has consistently remained China’s largest export market for textiles and apparel.
Leveraging geographical advantages and complementary industrial strengths, a mature cross-border industrial chain model of ‘China supplies raw materials, ASEAN produces garments, and the global market is expanded’ has been established. A large quantity of upstream textile products, such as yarns, fabrics, and accessories, continues to be exported from China to ASEAN countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia, providing core raw materials for local garment processing and manufacturing. Meanwhile, finished textile and apparel products from ASEAN continue to be sold back to the domestic market or exported worldwide, forming an efficiently connected industrial division system.
Since 2026, the textile industry’s exports to ASEAN have continued to show a high growth trend, with outstanding performance in specific market segments. Data show that from January to February 2026, China’s total textile and apparel exports to ASEAN reached 7.96 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of 19.1%. Among them, exports to Cambodia and Malaysia grew particularly rapidly, rising by 40.5% and 40.3% year-on-year, respectively.
In terms of product categories, exports of core textile raw materials such as yarn and fabric maintained steady momentum, reaching 4.49 billion USD in January and February, up 18% year-on-year, fully demonstrating the irreplaceable role of China’s upstream textile capacity in the ASEAN supply chain. By the end of the first half of the year, China’s textile and apparel exports to ASEAN totaled 25.4 billion USD, with export growth in June rebounding significantly and improving substantially month-on-month, showcasing strong market resilience.
From the perspective of industry operations, the continued smooth functioning of the trillion-dollar trade channel between China and ASEAN is of great significance to a wide range of textile foreign trade enterprises.
For domestic textile exporters For domestic textile exporters, the steadily growing bilateral trade volume means that demand in the ASEAN market continues to expand, providing a continuous and stable overseas sales channel for products such as fabrics, home textiles, and accessories.
For garment manufacturers For garment manufacturers, the region’s mature cross-border supply chains effectively reduce raw material transportation and cross-border processing costs. Relying on China’s raw material advantages and ASEAN’s processing and tariff benefits, this significantly enhances the global competitiveness of their products.
For retail procurement teams and importers For retail procurement teams and importers, the diversified regional textile product supply and smooth cross-border logistics system further enrich procurement categories, optimize procurement costs, and provide ample assurance for supplying domestic and international end markets.
Currently, the trade between China and ASEAN continues to solidify its core position within China’s foreign trade system. The trillion-level trade volume and the steadily increasing growth rate have laid a solid foundation for cross-border cooperation in the textile and apparel industry. With the continuous optimization of regional economic and trade cooperation policies and the deepening of industrial chain collaboration, the potential for two-way circulation, capacity cooperation, and joint market development in the China-ASEAN textile industry will be further unleashed, continuously serving as a core driving force for stabilizing domestic textile foreign trade growth, supporting industry transformation and upgrading, and advancing global layout.
Post time: Sep-03-2026
