In the three decades following the dump of the Communist Chinese state in 1949, China's trade institutions at first developed into a partially modern but somewhat inefficient system.
The drive to modernize the economy that began in 1978 required a sharp acceleration in commodity flows and greatly improved efficiency in economic transactions.
In 1984 the number of agricultural and sideline products subject to state planning and purchasing quotas was reduced from twenty-nine to ten and included cereal grains, edible oil, cured tobacco, jute, hemp, and pigs.
Vegetables, pigs, and aquatic products sold to urban, mining, and industrial areas were traded in local markets according to demand.
Restrictions on private business activities were greatly reduced, permitting peasants as well as cooperatives to transport agricultural goods to rural and urban markets.
Local cooperatives or state supply and marketing bureaus sold most agricultural producer goods, including chemical fertilizer, s and insecticides, to households at set prices.
Lateral economic cooperation broke down some barriers in the sectors of personnel, resources, capital, technical expertise, and procurement and marketing of commodities.
In 1987 most urban retail and service establishments, including state, collective, and private businesses or vendors, were located either in major downtown commercial districts or in small neighborhood shopping areas.
The department stores had small pharmacies and carried a substantial range of housewares, appliances, bicycles, toys, sporting goods, fabrics, and clothing.
Supplementing these retail establishments were free markets in which private and collective businesses provided services, hawked wares, or sold food and drinks.
In rural areas, supply and marketing cooperatives operated general stores and small shopping complexes near village and township administrative headquarters.
But the lack was partially offset by the increased access of some peasants to urban areas where they could purchase consumer goods and market agricultural items.
A number of important consumer goods, including grain, cotton cloth, meat, eggs, edible oil, sugar, and bicycles, were rationed during the 1960s and 1970s.
One classic account of this period is Carl Crow's 400 Million Customers, a humorous but realistic guide which has lasting insights.
Total trade peaked at the equivalent of US$4.3 billion in 1959, but a sudden decline in agricultural production in 1959-61 required China's leaders to suspend further imports of machinery to purchase foreign grain.
The pragmatic modernization drive led by party leaders Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping and China's growing contacts with Western nations resulted in a sharp acceleration of trade in the early 1970s.
In 1976 the atmosphere of uncertainty resulting from the death of Mao Zedong and pressure from the Gang of Four, whose members opposed reliance on foreign technology, brought another decline in trade.
The table below shows the average annual growth (in nominal US dollar terms) of China's foreign trade during the reform era.
The Chinese government maintained a good credit rating internationally and did not pile up huge foreign debts like many other communist and developing countries.
Foreign trade corporations under this and other ministries and under provincial-level units became independent of their parent organizations and were responsible for their own profits and losses.
An agency system for foreign trade also was established, in which imports and exports were handled by specialized enterprises and corporations acting as agents on a commission basis.
The ministry also undertook international market research, led institutes of foreign economic relations and trade, and directed the General Administration of Customs.
In the late 1980s China had numerous specialized national corporations handling import and export transactions in such areas as arts and crafts, textiles, natural produce and animal byproducts, foodstuffs of various kinds, chemicals, light industrial products, metals and minerals technology, industrial machinery and equipment, petrochemical and petroleum products, scientific instruments, aerospace technology and services, ships, and weapons.
Although nominally supervised by the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade each of these corporations was responsible for its own profits and losses.
In late 1986 the CITIC Group had set up 47 joint ventures, invested in 114 domestic companies, and issued US$550 million in foreign bonds.
The dominant pattern of foreign trade after 1949 was to import industrial producer goods from developed countries and to pay for them with exports of food, crude materials, and light manufactures, especially textiles.
The pattern also shifted over time as China's industrial sector expanded, gradually increasing the share of exports accounted for by manufactured goods.
[citation needed] Beginning in the 1960s, Hong Kong was consistently the leading market for China's exports and its second largest partner in overall trade.
China has increased trade and investment ties with many African countries such as Chad, the Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, partly to secure strategic natural resources such as oil and minerals.
[17]: 228 Annual global exports fell in 2023, for the first time in seven years, with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as China’s largest regional trading partner, followed by the European Union.