China-Italy Trade by Province

The volume of bilateral trade between Italy and China in 2021 reached 74 billion USD, an increase of more than 34 percent over the previous year. Italy imported goods for 44 billion USD and China purchased Italian goods for 30 billion USD .

Chinese customs have recently confirmed the aggregate values and details for each individual province in international trade among which it is interesting to evaluate the flow of goods with Italy.

Italy exported in particular some categories of goods to China, including machinery and mechanical equipment (5.9 billion USD), leather goods (3 billion USD) pharmaceutical products (2.5 billion USD), electronic equipment (1.8 billion USD), and clothing (1.7 billion USD).

The total trade volume recorded in 2021 with Italy corresponds to 1.2% of trade between China and the rest of the world (6,051 billion USD) with the largest flow of bilateral trade involving the more advanced coastal regions: Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong. The provinces with the lowest trade flows tended to be those with the lowest population and more complex logistics, such as Qinghai and Tibet located on the plateau, and Ningxia, a small province in western China.

Among the 31 administrative divisions of mainland China, Guangdong is the province from which derive the greatest exports to Italy (10.4 billion USD), while the municipality of Shanghai is the area that has realized the greatest flow of imports from Italy (13.7 billion USD). In relation to the change in trade flows 2021 compared to the year 2020, the Tianjin region had the largest increase in imports (+63 percent) and the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, which borders Russia had the largest increase in exports (+135 percent).