I. Overview of China's Chemical Industry Import and Export Trade 

With the rapid development of China's chemical industry, its import and export trade market has witnessed an explosive growth. According to the data from 2017 to 2023, the total value of China's chemical product import and export trade has 

increased from 504.6 billion US dollars to over 1.1 trillion US dollars, with an average annual growth rate of 15%. Among this, the import amount was close to 900 billion US dollars, mainly concentrated on energy-related products such as crude 

oil and natural gas; the export amount exceeded 240 billion US dollars, mainly consisting of products with relatively homogeneous characteristics and facing significant domestic market consumption pressure.

II. Analysis of Factors Driving the Growth of Import Trade 

The main reasons for the rapid growth of China's chemical industry's import trade volume are as follows: 

Demand for energy products is high: As the world's largest producer and consumer of chemical products, China has a huge demand for energy products and a large volume of imports, which has driven the rapid growth of total import amount.

Trend of low-carbon energy: As a low-carbon energy source, the import volume of natural gas has consistently shown rapid growth in the past few years, further promoting the growth of import amount.

Increased demand for new materials and new energy chemicals: In addition to energy products, the import growth rate of new materials and chemicals related to new energy is also relatively fast, reflecting the growth in demand for high-end products in China's chemical industry.

Incompatibility between demand and supply: The total import trade amount of chemical products in China has always been higher than the total export trade amount, indicating the mismatch between the current chemical product consumption market and its own supply market.

III. Changes in export trade characteristics 

The changes in the export trade volume of China's chemical industry are characterized by the following features: 

Export market is growing positively: Chinese chemical enterprises are actively seeking support from international consumer markets, and the amount of exports has shown a positive growth.

Export varieties are concentrated: The export varieties with the fastest growth mainly focus on products with relatively high homogeneity and those with greater domestic market consumption pressure, such as oil products and derivatives, polyesters and their products, etc.

The Southeast Asian market is important: The Southeast Asian market is one of the most important countries for China's chemical product exports, accounting for approximately 24% of the total export amount, demonstrating the competitiveness of China's chemical products in the Southeast Asian market.