On April 19, it was learned from Changzhou Customs that BEST, an electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturer located in Jintan district, achieved 770 million yuan in foreign trade during the first quarter of this year, soaring by 497.1 percent year-on-year.

SK Innovation Co., a major energy and chemical company in South Korea, invested 1 billion yuan in 2013 to set up an EV battery joint venture named BESK with Beijing Automotive Group and Beijing Electronics to tap deeper into the world's largest EV market.

BEST is BESK's wholly owned subsidiary. It is also SK Innovation's first EV battery cell manufacturing plant outside South Korea.

BEST's annual production capacity is 7.5 gigawatt hours (Gwh), which is enough to supply batteries for 150,000 EVs.