From January to February, Changzhou’s total import and export values reached 49.83 billion yuan, up 14.2 percent year-on-year, a good start for the year 2022.

Of the total, exports soared to 38.67 billion yuan, marking an 18.9-percent increase from the same period last year, while imports jumped 0.6 percent year-on-year to 11.16 billion yuan.

In February, the city’s foreign trade recorded 21.7 billion yuan, an increase of 5 percent over the same month last year. This is the 19th consecutive month the rate has been positive since August 2020.

In the first two months of 2022, Changzhou’s foreign trade with the United States, EU, ASEAN, Japan, and South Korea went up 27.6 percent, 6.3 percent, 21.6 percent, 11.6 percent, and 4.6 percent, respectively.

Trade with Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa saw a strong increase in the Jan-Feb period, up 22.2 percent, 12.6 percent, and 19.4 percent, respectively.

Privately owned businesses contributed 26.54 billion yuan to Changzhou’s foreign trade in the first two months, up 13.1 percent from the same period last year, accounting for more than half of the total trade volume.

Foreign-invested companies and state-owned enterprises recorded trade volumes of 21.24 billion yuan and 2.05 billion yuan, up 14.9 percent and 24.1 percent, respectively.

Meanwhile, exports of mechanical and electrical products, the largest category of exported goods during the period, registered 23.78 billion yuan, an increase of 20.7 percent, making up 61.5 percent of the total export value.

The authority also noted the increasing imports of high-tech products, which represented 12.8 percent of the city’s total import value during January and February.