The Yangtze River Delta region, which encompasses Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui, continued to be vibrant clusters of foreign trade in the first four months of the year.

Jiangsu’s total imports and exports increased by 5.7% year-on-year to 1.85 trillion yuan in the period, followed by Zhejiang with 1.75 trillion yuan, Shanghai at 1.4 trillion yuan, and Anhui at 292.47 billion yuan, up 6.6%, 1% and 14.1%, respectively.

Notably, among the top ten export cities in China during this period, five were from this region at the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Shanghai, Suzhou, and Ningbo ranked second, third and fourth nationally.

As an industrial hub, Suzhou accounted for 6% of China’s total foreign trade, with mechanical and electrical products making up nearly 80% of the city’s total exports.

The three cities - Ningbo, Jinhua and Hangzhou - together contributed nearly 60% of Zhejiang’s total foreign trade.

As capital city of Anhui, Hefei stood out for a 19.5% of foreign trade growth, making it the fastest-growing among the region’s nine cities that each have a trillion-yuan GDP.