Nantong Port. [Photo/Nantong Daily]

The imports and exports of Nantong in East China's Jiangsu province were valued at a record 366.53 billion yuan ($54.03 billion) in 2022, up 8.1 percent from 2021, statistics from Nantong Customs show.

The increate rate is 3.3 percentage points, 0.4 percentage points higher than the provincial and national averages. The total foreign trade accounted for 6.7 percent of the provincial total.

Nantong's exports grew 4.5 percent year-on-year to 235.04 billion yuan, while its imports expanded by 15.1 percent year-on-year to 131.49 billion yuan.

The foreign trade of the Nantong Free Trade Zone amounted to 17.9 billion yuan last year, ranking eighth among all 21 FTZs in Jiangsu, while the two bonded logistics centers in the city ranked fifth and sixth, respectively, in the province in foreign trade value.

Nantong's trade with its five largest partners – the EU, ASEAN, the US, Japan, and Latin America – increased 15.6 percent, 16.4 percent, 0.6 percent, 10 percent, and 31.8 percent, respectively, while it saw yearly growth of 29.8 percent in trade with countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Over the past year, Nantong Customs issued 11,500 RCEP certificates of origin for cargo worth $665 million, exempting 332 local businesses from $4.5 million in tariffs.

Nantong's trade with RCEP members jumped 18.3 percent year-on-year that same year, 13.8 percentage points higher than the city's overall foreign trade growth.