Chongqing- The foreign trade imports and exports of Chongqing increased by 37.6% over the same period last year, with a total value of 376.6 billion yuan (approximately 58.05 billion U.S. Dollars), and its exports have maintained positive growth for 15 consecutive months, according to the latest data showed by Chongqing Customs recently.

Especially in June this year, the value reached 71.9 billion yuan, a record high of the monthly import and export scale.

Data shows that in the first half of this year, Chongqing achieved exports of 232.13 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 37.7%; imports of 144.47 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 37.5%.

Foreign trade in Chongqing	Year-on-year increase
Exports	37.7%
Imports	37.5%

Trade with trading partners maintained sound growth

Wang Honghan, the deputy commissioner of Chongqing Customs, said that the imports and exports of Chongqing with major trading partners keep growth momentum.

According to Wang, in the first half of this year, the trade value of Chongqing with the three trading partners, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the European Union (EU), and the United States (U.S.) were 62.99 billion yuan, 58.74 billion yuan, and 55.51 billion yuan, up by 24.5%, 33.6%, and 32.3% respectively.

Moreover, during the same period, Chongqing’s trade with Korea and Japan rose 11.1% and 47.8%. Trade with countries along the Belt and Road went up 39.3%, while trade with the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) countries grew 26%.

Trading partners	Year-on-year increase
Japan	47.8%
Belt and Road countries	39.3%
EU	33.6%
The U.S.	32.3%
RCEP countries	26%
ASEAN countries	24.5%
Korea	11.1%

Meanwhile, the trade of private enterprises increased dramatically in this period, with 162.69 billion yuan, 78.8% growth rate. The figures climbed to 35.11 billion yuan and 178.45 billion yuan for the state-owned enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises, showing an increase of 56.6% and 11.7%, respectively.

Enterprises in Chongqing	Year-on-year increase
Private	78.8%
State-owned	56.6%
Foreign-invested	11.7%

Exports of products made in Chongqing increased well

As for the exports, products made in Chongqing, including laptops, integrated circuits, tablets, and agricultural products, had strong growth in the first half of this year.

Among them, the export value of Chongqing notebook computers was 89.63 billion yuan, an increase of 23.7%; the export values of integrated circuits and tablet computers were 15.78 billion yuan and 11.37 billion yuan, an increase of 45.1% and 1.8 times respectively.

In addition, Chongqing also exported 470 million yuan of agricultural products in the first half of the year, an increase of 17.6%. In the same period, 2.073 million motorcycles and 95,000 automobiles were exported, increasing 59.7% and 1.1 times respectively.

Imports of consumable goods ranked the first

“Chongqing ranked the first in the central and western regions in its imports of consumable goods in the first half of this year,” said Wang. Fruit and cosmetics imports increased by 82.7% and 48.4% correspondingly, which signals that domestic demand growth has achieved significant results in driving imports.

In addition, the import of integrated circuit and semiconductor manufacturing equipment contributed 44.7% to the import growth of Chongqing during the same period.

This reflects that economy in Chongqing is showing a steady and positive trend, leading to a significant increase in imports of production equipment, key parts and accessories, and consumer goods.

Imported Products	Year-on-year increase
Fruit	82.7%
Cosmetics	48.4%
Integrated circuit and semiconductor manufacturing equipment	44.7%

Private enterprises, the driving force of local foreign trade growth

According to Chongqing Customs, private enterprises became the major driving force of the foreign trade growth of Chongqing in the first half of the year.  

Wang said, in the first half of the year, the monthly import and export growth rates of Chongqing's private enterprises were more than 40%, with a cumulative increase of 78.8%, which was 43.7 percentage points higher than the overall increase in the import and export of private enterprises nationwide during the same period.

He continued, among the 18 provinces and cities where the import and export scale of private enterprises in the country exceeds 100 billion yuan, the growth rate of Chongqing ranked second, contributing 69.7% of Chongqing’s foreign trade growth over the same period.

 (Du Min, as an intern, also contributed to this report.)