MaKe | MaHui Member Cloud Whale Empowers New Quality Productive Forces, Sets New Record in Foreign Trade

This article is republished from the People's Daily app

In the first half of this year, Cloud Whale, a MaHui portfolio company, saw its overseas revenue surge nearly sevenfold year-on-year, expanding its international sales footprint from nine countries and regions last year to 30.

Its premium flagship model topped Amazon's bestseller charts in the United States and Canada on launch day; a new release claimed the number-one spot on Italy's Amazon robot vacuum bestseller list the same day it dropped... The smart robot vacuums from Cloud Whale, based in Shenzhen, China, have become hot-ticket items in households abroad.

"We've insisted on independent innovation across 3D perception, large AI models, binocular vision technology, big data applications, and more — accumulating over 1,000 patent applications. It's this long-built technical edge that's helped us push into more overseas markets," said Zhang Junbin, founder of Cloud Whale. He noted that the company conducts thorough preliminary research before entering any new market, developing products tailored to local consumer needs.

Leading technical reserves, a complete product portfolio, and innovative sales channels... these are the engines driving China's vibrant foreign trade.

Customs data shows that in the first seven months, China's import-export volume hit a record high for the same period. Total goods trade reached 24.83 trillion yuan, up 6.2% year-on-year. Exports accounted for 14.26 trillion yuan (up 6.7%), while imports hit 10.57 trillion yuan (up 5.4%). July saw both year-on-year and month-on-month growth, with the year-on-year rate staying above 5% for four consecutive months.

Developing new quality productive forces is strengthening China's trade competitiveness. From Olympic-related sports equipment to versatile electronics, from smart "green" ships to high-performance integrated circuits... a marked competitive advantage across industrial and supply chains, robust innovation momentum, and effective policy support are all boosting China's international trade competitiveness. High-tech, high-value-added products are growing rapidly and winning fans overseas.

Green is becoming the defining color of high-quality trade development. Currently, four out of every ten cars China exports are electric vehicles; seven out of ten rail locomotives are electric; and nearly 90% of exported batteries are lithium-ion.

New business formats are forging fresh trade advantages. Cross-border e-commerce has become a new channel for countless small and medium enterprises to reach international markets. In the first half of the year, roughly nine million small packages moved between China and the rest of the world each day.

Take Ningbo: four out of every five foreign trade businesses there now engage in cross-border e-commerce, with over 20,000 such enterprises and 233 overseas warehouses built and operated globally. "Through our global supply chain, we deliver goods directly to foreign ports, warehouses, supermarkets, and other designated locations — hitting fast-forward for Chinese products going global," said Lin Hua, site manager at Ningbo Yaji Logistics.

As high-standard opening-up advances, more quality goods from around the world are entering the Chinese market, satisfying consumers' upgrading demands and facilitating the transformation of traditional industries. In the first seven months, imports grew 5.4% to 10.57 trillion yuan. This steady expansion of imports further reflects the ongoing recovery of the domestic market, the stabilization and improvement of business expectations, and the solid progress of high-quality development.

Ministry of Commerce data shows that China's share of global trade has been expanding this year. In Q1, China's export market share reached 13.6%, up 0.2 percentage points year-on-year. Preliminary calculations put the first-half share at roughly 14%, maintaining China's position as the world's largest goods trader.

As one of the "three engines" driving economic growth, foreign trade is the critical nexus connecting domestic and international circulation. The Third Plenum of the 20th CPC Central Committee called for "deepening foreign trade system reform," "actively responding to the trends of digitalization and greening in trade," and "creating an institutional environment conducive to the development of new business forms and models." Going forward, as reform measures are implemented in detail, policies to stabilize foreign trade continue to take effect, and new drivers of trade are cultivated faster, business vitality will be further unleashed — keeping China's foreign trade on a stable and positive trajectory.