China exported eight times more beer to Russia than it imported in July

China exported about eight times more beer to Russia than it imported from Russia in July, according to figures from China’s customs administration, underscoring how quickly the trade has tilted in Beijing’s favor even as Russian shipments posted their strongest month of the year.

The Chinese data, published on Aug. 21, show that China exported beer to Russia worth US$7.3 million in July. Over the same month, China imported Russian beer worth US$912,300. That left a gap of roughly US$6.4 million in monthly trade value between the two flows.

China’s beer exports to Russia rose sharply from both the prior month and the same month last year. In June, Chinese shipments to Russia were valued at US$4.9 million. The July figure was US$2.4 million higher, an increase of about 49% based on the rounded customs values. In July 2025, the value stood at US$4.5 million, meaning this July’s total was up by about US$2.8 million, or 62.2%.

Russian beer exports to China also increased in July, but from a much lower base. China’s customs data show imports from Russia reached US$912,300 in July, up from US$774,300 in June and US$810,900 in July 2025. That works out to a monthly gain of 17.8% and a year-over-year increase of 12.5%. It was the highest monthly figure for Russian beer sales to China so far in 2026.

The July rebound, however, did not reverse the broader decline in Russian shipments during the first seven months of the year. From January through July, Russian beer exports to China totaled US$3.6 million, down from US$8 million in the same period a year earlier. That was a drop of US$4.4 million, or 55%.

China moved in the opposite direction over the same period. Its beer exports to Russia reached US$32.3 million in the first seven months of 2026, compared with US$22.5 million in January through July of 2025. That was an increase of US$9.8 million, or 43.6%.

Taken together, the figures show that the July increase in Russian sales to China came alongside a much faster expansion in Chinese sales to Russia. Even with Russia posting its best monthly result of the year, the bilateral trade in beer remained heavily weighted toward Chinese exports.

The customs figures are reported in U.S. dollar values and cover both July and the January-July period. They do not include volumes in liters, average prices, or a linked primary customs table in the material cited, which means the data show trade value rather than physical shipment size. The percentage changes are calculated from rounded dollar amounts.

The numbers also show that Russia remains a relatively small beer supplier to China when compared with the market’s largest exporters. During the first seven months of 2026, China bought beer from 54 countries. Germany was the biggest supplier by value at US$61.4 million, followed by the Netherlands at US$53.9 million and Spain at US$46.6 million. Russia’s US$3.6 million total placed it far below those leading exporters.

The wider trend had already been visible in full-year 2025 trade figures. Russian beer exports to China fell to US$10.9 million last year from US$24 million in 2024, while Chinese beer shipments to Russia rose to US$43.2 million from US$29.96 million in 2024.

Those year-end totals help explain why the latest monthly gain for Russian brewers has drawn attention without changing the bigger picture. China’s beer trade with Russia has been expanding on one side and shrinking on the other, and the latest customs figures show that pattern continuing through most of 2026.