A view of Nantong Port. [Photo/ntfabu.com]

The foreign trade of Nantong in East China's Jiangsu province surged 29.7 percent year-on-year in 2021 to 340.58 billion yuan ($53.55 billion), according to Nantong Customs.

The rate of increase was 12.6 percentage points and 8.3 percentage points higher than the provincial and national averages respectively.

The city's exports jumped 26.3 percent year-on-year to 226.34 billion yuan while its imports surged 37 percent year-on-year to 114.24 billion yuan.

Nantong's imports and exports accounted for 6.5 percent of the total amount in Jiangsu, 0.6 percentage points higher than the figure in 2020.

Its trade with three major markets – the European Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the United States – experienced double-digit increases with respective year-on-year increases of 26.5 percent, 23.4 percent, and 18.9 percent.

Its trade with countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative surged 33.7 percent year-on-year while trade with members of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership exceeded 100 billion yuan.

The combined exports of mechanical and electronic products, labor-intensive products, and chemicals accounted for 78.5 percent of the total in Nantong.

As of the end of 2021, 23,000 companies in the city were engaged in foreign trade and 1,357 of them were registered in the past year. The combined imports and exports of the top 10 foreign trade companies in the city accounted for 27.4 percent of its total, 2.9 percentage points higher than the year before.