Traditional hardware products, also known as "hardware", refer to five kinds of metals, namely gold, silver, copper, iron and tin; in modern society, hardware products are more extensive, including hardware tools, hardware parts, daily hardware, construction hardware and security supplies.

Since the early 1990s, China's hardware industry has always maintained a high-speed development trend. At present, it has played an inestimable role in the development of the national economy, and has become an indispensable industrial link in industrial manufacturing. In recent years, with the advantages of low cost of raw materials and labor, China's export of hardware products has maintained a stable growth trend, and has become one of the major exporters of global hardware products.

In 2017, the foreign trade development of China's hardware industry continued to "stabilize and improve". The import trade of the industry increased steadily throughout the year. Although the export trade fluctuated throughout the year, it increased rapidly in the fourth quarter. The annual cumulative foreign trade growth rate of the industry recovered to the level of about 10% three years ago.

According to customs statistics, from January to December 2017, China's hardware industry realized a total import and export volume of 128.020 billion US dollars, an increase of 9.43% year-on-year. After experiencing the negative growth in 2016, the foreign trade of the industry rebounded significantly in 2017, increased by 16.41 percentage points compared with the same period of the previous year.

Among them, the total export reached 104.478 billion US dollars, with a year-on-year growth of 9.70%, and the growth rate turned to positive growth, significantly higher than 18.23 percentage points in the same period of 2016; the accumulated foreign trade surplus reached 80.937 billion US dollars, an increase of 7.41 billion US dollars compared with the same period in 2016, and the foreign trade surplus of the industry increased by 10.08% on a year-on-year basis, 20.54% higher than that in the same period of 2016.