China News Service reported on 23 October 2026 that Liu Bo, deputy director of Shanghai Customs, told a third-quarter briefing on customs support for foreign trade that Shanghai's imports and exports grew 17.9% year on year in the first three quarters, with double-digit growth in each quarter.
Total trade reached 3.94 trillion yuan. Exports were 1.81 trillion yuan, up 22.3%, and imports were 2.13 trillion yuan, up 14.4%. Shanghai ranks fourth among Chinese provinces and municipalities by trade value.
Average monthly trade rose from 410 billion yuan in the first quarter to 440 billion yuan in the second and 460 billion yuan in the third. In September alone, trade passed 500 billion yuan for the first time, reaching 503.05 billion yuan, up 23.7%.
Exports were the main driver. Seven categories of AI-related products (industrial transformers, energy-storage batteries, servers, integrated circuits, storage components, communication equipment and optical transceiver modules) exported 415.28 billion yuan, up 70.3%. They made up 23% of Shanghai's exports and added 11.6 percentage points to export growth.
Shanghai's exports of high-end robots also rank among the top in China. The city accounted for 21.8% of national exports of intelligent bionic robots and 64.7% of medical surgical robots, according to the report.