Signing free trade agreements with countries of the belt and road initiatives is an important measure for China to further expand its opening-up at this stage, but the impact is yet to be tested Based on the export data of manufacturing industry from China to the countries of the belt and road initiatives in the period of 2003 to 2017, the DID (difference-in-difference) model is used to examine the impact of free trade agreements on Chinese manufacturing exports The study shows that the free trade agreements signed between China and the countries of the belt and road initiatives have an export-promoting effect Further analysis shows that the promoting effect is only a short-term effect and the promotion has gradually declined over time At the same time, the sub-sample study shows that the promoting effect has different characteristics in different cooperation regions Compared with the countries along “One Belt”, the promoting effect between China and the countries along the “One Road” is more obvious