China imports as share of country's GDP
What you should know about this indicator
- This indicator shows how much of a country’s economic output is equivalent to the value of goods it imports from China.
- Imports are valued on a CIF basis (Cost, Insurance, and Freight). This means the values include the cost of the goods, as well as the transport and insurance costs to deliver them to the importing country's border.
- Expressing imports as a share of GDP highlights the scale of economic dependence on Chinese goods relative to the overall size of the economy.
- A higher percentage indicates that Chinese imports play a larger role in the economy, while a lower percentage suggests less reliance on China as a supplier.
What you should know about this indicator
- This indicator shows how much of a country’s economic output is equivalent to the value of goods it imports from China.
- Imports are valued on a CIF basis (Cost, Insurance, and Freight). This means the values include the cost of the goods, as well as the transport and insurance costs to deliver them to the importing country's border.
- Expressing imports as a share of GDP highlights the scale of economic dependence on Chinese goods relative to the overall size of the economy.
- A higher percentage indicates that Chinese imports play a larger role in the economy, while a lower percentage suggests less reliance on China as a supplier.
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
How we process data at Our World in Data
All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.
At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.
Notes on our processing step for this indicator
We calculated the share of imports from China by dividing the value of CIF imports by GDP and multiplying by 100. Import data came from official trade statistics and were valued in current US dollars. GDP was taken from World Bank data, both in current US dollars.
Reuse this work
- All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
- All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.
Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: China imports as share of country's GDP”, part of the following publication: Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, Diana Beltekian, and Max Roser (2018) - “Trade and Globalization”. Data adapted from International Monetary Fund, World Bank and OECD national accounts. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20250912-094807/grapher/china-imports-as-share-of-gdp.html [online resource] (archived on September 12, 2025).How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
International Monetary Fund (2025); World Bank and OECD national accounts (2025) – with major processing by Our World in DataFull citation
International Monetary Fund (2025); World Bank and OECD national accounts (2025) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “China imports as share of country's GDP” [dataset]. International Monetary Fund, “International Trade in Goods (by partner country) (IMTS)”; World Bank and OECD national accounts, “World Development Indicators” [original data]. Retrieved September 18, 2025 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20250912-094807/grapher/china-imports-as-share-of-gdp.html (archived on September 12, 2025).