According to information from China's Customs Service, goods sold to Portuguese-speaking markets through May reached 34.6 billion dollars.
This is the highest figure for the first five months of a year since the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries (Macau Forum) began reporting this data in 2013.
The data released reveal that the main reason for the new record was Angola, whose imports from China rose 72.6 percent to 2.32 billion dollars.
Still, despite a 1.9 percent annual drop, Brazil remains by far the largest buyer in the Portuguese-speaking bloc, with Chinese goods from China worth close to 28 billion dollars.
Second on the list, ahead of Angola, is Portugal, which bought products from China worth 2.71 billion dollars, 6.2 percent more than in the first five months of 2024.
In the opposite direction, exports from Portuguese-speaking countries to China fell by 18.5 percent between January and May 2025, compared to the same period last year.
The Portuguese-speaking bloc sold goods worth 47.6 billion dollars to the Chinese market, the lowest value for the first five months of a year since 2020, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The drop was mainly due to the largest Portuguese-speaking supplier to the Chinese market, Brazil, whose sales fell by more than a fifth (21.3 percent) to US$38.4 billion.
Furthermore, China's second largest trading partner in the Portuguese-speaking bloc, Angola, saw its exports fall by 3.5 percent to 6.91 billion dollars.
Likewise, sales of goods from Portugal to China fell by 7.1 percent to 1.15 billion dollars.
In contrast, exports from Mozambique rose by 12.2 percent to 720 million dollars.
Equatorial Guinea's exports to the Chinese market fell by more than a quarter (26.7 percent) to 379.3 million dollars.
Almost all Portuguese-speaking countries saw sales of goods to China shrink in the first five months of 2025, including Timor-Leste (down 3.1 percent) and Cape Verde (down 82.5 percent).
In addition to Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe was also an exception, with exports to the Chinese market that more than quadrupled, but did not exceed 15 thousand dollars. Guinea-Bissau did not sell any products to China.
China registered a trade deficit of almost 13 billion dollars with the Portuguese-speaking bloc between January and May.
In total, trade between Portuguese-speaking countries and China reached 82.1 billion dollars, 11.1 percent less than in the same period last year.
