2025 is a key year for China's economy to move towards transformation and development, and it is also a year for planning for the 15th Five-Year Plan. Under the background of the profound adjustment and change of the current global economic structure, the foreign trade market of the lighting industry is also facing new opportunities. This article summarizes the characteristics of my country's lighting industry exports in 2024, combines the current foreign trade situation, and briefly predicts the development trend of the lighting industry's foreign trade in 2025, providing reference and reference for the construction of foreign trade markets for enterprises.
1. Characteristics of my country's lighting industry exports in 2024 In the past year, the export of the lighting industry has maintained a certain resilience, which can be briefly summarized in three words: "stable, new, and declining".
(I) Stable. my country's lighting exports are generally stable, the export share of key products is stable, and the key export market remains stable.
In 2024, my country's lighting product exports will be US$56.1 billion, a slight decrease of 0.3% year-on-year. The total export volume basically remains at a historical high, and the total export volume of electromechanical products has remained at 3% for 8 consecutive years.
Among them, the export of lighting products remains stable, with an export volume of approximately US$42.4 billion, accounting for 76% of the total export volume of the lighting industry. The export of some lighting products has achieved growth, which has played a key supporting role in stabilizing the industry's export market. Among them, the export volume and export value of fixed lighting fixtures increased by 9.8% and 0.8% year-on-year respectively; the export volume and export value of movable lighting fixtures increased by 17.7% and 2.2% year-on-year respectively; the export volume and export value of other electric lamps and lighting devices designed to use only light-emitting diode (LED) light sources increased by 56.4% and 35% year-on-year respectively.
The two major export markets in Europe and the United States maintained a stable export value of approximately US$27.2 billion, an increase of 0.2% year-on-year, an increase of 0.5 percentage points from the previous 11 months, and the proportion of total exports remained at 48%.
From the perspective of a single export destination, the top ten markets for my country's lighting product exports in 2024 are: the United States, Germany, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan, the Netherlands, Thailand and India, with an overall stable export value of approximately US$28 billion, an increase of approximately 3% year-on-year; accounting for approximately 50% of my country's lighting exports, which is basically the same as the previous year.
(II) New The export products contain more new products, the markets along the Belt and Road have become new growth points, and the export of LED modules has reached a new high.
Driven by policies and the market, my country's photovoltaic lighting and automotive lighting exports have ushered in new good development opportunities. In 2024, my country's photovoltaic lighting product exports will be about 1.8 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 35%, accounting for 3% of my country's total lighting industry exports, an increase of 1 percentage point compared with 2023. This not only enriches the global supply of green lighting products, but also contributes to China's efforts to respond to climate change and achieve green and low-carbon transformation.
Automotive lighting products are widely welcomed by the global market, with an export value of about 4.5 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 11%; accounting for 8% of my country's total lighting industry exports, an increase of 1 percentage point compared with 2023.
In 2024, the value of my country's lighting products exported to the markets along the "Belt and Road" will be about 25.2 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 3%, accounting for 45% of my country's total lighting product exports, an increase of 1 percentage point over the same period last year. The top ten markets along the Belt and Road (excluding European countries) are Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia and Kazakhstan, with an export value of US$12.7 billion, an increase of 11% year-on-year; accounting for about 50% of the markets along the Belt and Road, an increase of 3 percentage points over the same period last year.
With the accelerated elimination of traditional electric light source products, the overseas market demand for my country's LED module products has soared, with annual exports of about 5.9 billion units, an increase of about 488% year-on-year. Exports to countries or regions such as India, Egypt, and Vietnam account for about 61% of the total exports of LED module products, an increase of 11 percentage points from 2023. These countries or regions are also potential competitors for my country in the overseas market. Among them, the number of LED modules exported to India is the largest, about 1.3 billion units for the whole year, an increase of 736% year-on-year. The import growth rate of this product in some regions and other places has exceeded 1,600%. my country's LED module exports are about US$480 million, a year-on-year increase of 69%. The largest export value to the United States is about US$70 million, a year-on-year increase of 84%. The rapid growth of exports of this product reflects the current situation of the outsourcing of some links in my country's lighting industry chain from one aspect.
(III) Decline. The average export price of products has further declined, and the export of electric light source products has continued to decline.
In 2024, among the lighting products with 59 tax numbers, the average export price of about 83% of the products has declined to varying degrees, ranging from 1% to 93%. The export value of these products accounts for about 99% of the total export value of my country's lighting products. Among them, the average export price of major lighting products such as fixed lamps and portable lamps has dropped by 5%-17%. The total average export price of LED electric light sources (LED bulbs, LED tubes, LED modules) has dropped by 49%. Taking light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs (85395210) as an example, the average export price of this product fell by 22% year-on-year in 2024, and the export unit price in major export markets such as Europe and the United States fell by 10%-30%.
Last year, the export volume of traditional electric light sources such as thermal radiation light sources and gas discharge light sources fell by 16% year-on-year, accounting for about 10% of the total export volume of electric light sources for general lighting, a decrease of 9 percentage points from the same period last year. In terms of export value, from January to December, my country's export value of electric light source products was about 6.3 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 8.5%, accounting for 11% of my country's total lighting industry exports, and a decrease of 1 percentage point from 2023.
2. Current foreign trade situation At present, the global economic recovery is weak, market demand is sluggish, trade protectionism is on the rise, international supply chain reconstruction, and raw material cost increases have brought more challenges to my country's lighting foreign trade exports. (I) The foreign trade environment has become more volatile
After taking office, the new US government has adhered to the principle of America first, and has continuously brought new uncertainties to the world through trade restrictions such as increasing tariffs, anti-dumping, and anti-subsidy investigations, further disrupting the global trade pattern and increasing trade frictions between regions around the world. On February 1, 2025, the US government announced that it would impose a 10% tariff on all Chinese goods exported to the United States on the grounds of fentanyl and other issues, and it will officially take effect on February 4. The additional tariffs imposed by the United States this time involve all 59 tax numbers of lighting products in my country, and the tax rate after the increase will range from 12% to 47.5%. Since the start of the Sino-US trade dispute in 2018, China's exports of lighting products to the United States have fluctuated. In 2019, my country's exports of lighting products to the United States fell by about 13%. After a brief rebound during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, it began to decline again in 2022, and the decline further widened to 16% in 2023. Although the decline slowed to 1% in 2024, the US's move to further increase tariffs has once again disrupted the global supply chain and market supply and demand stability.
(II) Strengthening support for foreign trade
In response to changes in the external environment, since September 2024, many departments of the Chinese government have successively introduced a package of incremental policies to boost the confidence of market entities and lay a solid foundation for the stabilization and recovery of the economy. The Central Economic Work Conference held in December last year made clear arrangements on "expanding high-level opening up, stabilizing foreign trade, and stabilizing foreign investment". Subsequent relevant policies to stabilize foreign trade and promote growth will provide strong support for the high-quality development of my country's foreign trade. Recently, the State Council held an executive meeting of the State Council to study the relevant work of boosting consumption; the Ministry of Commerce held a national foreign trade work conference to emphasize that we must strengthen our confidence, adhere to the goal-oriented and problem-oriented approach, clearly understand the complexity and severity of the foreign trade situation, and go all out to stabilize foreign trade growth. We must expand new trade formats such as cross-border e-commerce to help enterprises expand into the international market. The State Administration of Taxation also recently issued the "Announcement on Supporting the Development of Export Tax Refund (Exemption) for Cross-border E-commerce Export Overseas Warehouses", clarifying the export tax refund (exemption) related matters for taxpayers exporting goods in the form of export overseas warehouses (customs supervision method code "9810"), and further play the positive role of export tax rebates in supporting the development of cross-border e-commerce export overseas warehouses (hereinafter referred to as export overseas warehouses), providing guarantees for the development of the industry this year. From the perspective of monetary policy, under the tone of "moderate easing", it is expected that the central bank will continue to implement reserve requirement ratio cuts and interest rate cuts in 2025, maintain reasonable liquidity and strong support for the real economy. The introduction of these favorable policies also provides good policy support for the stable development of my country's lighting industry.
3. Outlook for lighting industry exports in 2025
In 2025, my country's lighting industry exports will also face a big test. Although there are many unfavorable factors, there are opportunities in the crisis. It is expected that my country's lighting industry foreign trade market will still be under pressure in 2025, but the overall situation will remain stable.
(I) The international community sends positive signals
The World Trade Organization (WTO) expects global trade to expand moderately, and the world's merchandise trade volume will increase by 3.0% in 2025, and inflation may fall. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Autumn Report predicts that the global economic growth rate will be 3.2% in 2025. From a macro perspective, factors such as the recovery of the international economy, trade transfer, and the upward cycle of the global manufacturing industry can alleviate the impact of trade frictions to a certain extent.
(II) Enterprises actively compete for a good start
According to the survey of our association, after the Spring Festival holiday, industry enterprises have resumed production one after another, and most large and medium-sized export enterprises said that the order situation remained basically stable compared with the same period last year. In order to avoid the impact of the US tariff increase, small and medium-sized enterprises in some industrial clusters also saw a small climax of export order growth before the Spring Festival. Some companies in the middle and upper reaches of the industry chain, such as chip packaging, also experienced a backlog of orders before and after the Spring Festival. Companies are actively resuming production to compete for a good start.
(III) Expanding new ideas for overseas development
Since last year, going overseas has become an important choice for many companies to develop stably. In addition to simply transferring production capacity overseas to avoid tariffs, more companies have gone abroad in various forms to expand new overseas development with the purpose of getting closer to consumer groups, more conveniently acquiring high-end talents, and more vigorously establishing brand image. Judging from the overseas development of brother industries such as home appliances in 2024, the demand for my country's electromechanical products in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East is still strong, and the high cost-effectiveness and related services of my country's products have been favored by the local market. Therefore, digging deep into the needs of the local market will provide new growth momentum for my country's lighting industry foreign trade. Companies engaged in related fields such as lighting design and engineering construction also need to actively seek growth in overseas markets, which has become a new direction for the lighting industry to expand overseas development.
Faced with a complex external environment, my country's lighting foreign trade companies need to give full play to their own advantages, actively adjust their strategies, and achieve steady development. On the one hand, we should take scientific and technological innovation as the guide, actively develop new products around popular lighting segments such as roads, landscapes, low carbon, and agriculture, improve the high-end, green, and intelligent levels of products, continuously improve the technical content and added value of products, practice internal skills, and create products and brands with core competitiveness to cope with the various challenges brought by trade protectionism. On the other hand, we should attach great importance to the optimization of supply chain management, actively explore emerging markets, reduce dependence on a single market and suppliers, and disperse market risks; consolidate traditional markets, establish long-term and stable cooperative relationships, and jointly deal with various uncertainties in the supply chain to ensure the stability and smoothness of the supply chain. In addition, in addition to product exports, my country's foreign trade enterprises also need to follow the pace of national overseas investment and construction, actively participate in the construction of lighting engineering projects in emerging markets such as the Belt and Road countries led by Chinese enterprises, and adjust my country's lighting export methods, from the past single product export to the "product + service" export.
The China Association of Lighting Appliances will also play an active role by organizing enterprises to participate in international exhibitions such as the Frankfurt Lighting Fair, the Russian Lighting Fair, and the Hong Kong Lighting Fair, as well as holding important domestic exhibitions such as the Guzhen International Lighting Fair and the Shanghai International Commercial and Engineering Lighting Fair, and inviting foreign buyers to come in, etc., to maintain the vitality of the foreign trade market. At the same time, through the establishment of industry exchange and cooperation platforms such as the China Lighting Industry Conference and the China Road Lighting Forum, the promotion of high-quality enterprises, and the strengthening of the construction of industry standard quality systems, a series of measures will be taken to guide the industry to practice the new development concept, help enterprises seize the opportunities of global market adjustment and industrial structure optimization and upgrading, cultivate new quality productivity in the industry, and promote the construction of an international and domestic dual circulation development pattern.
