China Customs said at a State Council Information Office briefing that industrial robot exports in 1H totaled CNY 6.29 billion, up 18.6%, shipped to 141 countries and regions. Customs expects China to become a net exporter of industrial robots in 2025 as exports surpass imports. New tariff/trade codes introduced this year for intelligent bionic and cleaning robots will enable more precise trade statistics.

China Customs said in 1H eastern China's imports and exports exceeded 20 trillion yuan, up 16.5% YoY and accounting for 78.8% of China's total foreign trade value. Western, central and northeastern regions' imports and exports rose 20.3%, 20.0% and 8.6% YoY, respectively.

On July 13 the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) held a forum with scientist representatives from central state-owned enterprises. The meeting said central SOEs are the backbone of China’s push to become a technologically strong nation and must shoulder the mission of achieving high‑level technological self‑reliance. It called for systematized R&D efforts anchored to major national strategies, for central SOEs to take on more national‑level major research projects and to deliver more indigenous, proprietary technologies. The meeting urged deeper integration of technological and industrial innovation, stronger collaborative innovation with universities, research institutes and upstream/downstream firms, and leadership in technology maturation, process optimization and product iteration. It called for stepped‑up talent development through more proactive, open and effective talent policies to cultivate outstanding young science and technology talent. The meeting stressed improving R&D input‑output efficiency, increasing the share of basic research in total R&D spending and aligning larger funding with efficiency gains; refining assessment and evaluation systems and deepening institutional reforms to prioritize innovation quality and effectiveness; and strengthening research ethics governance and technology security risk prevention to better balance development and security.