Chongqing's foreign trade volume up 16% in 2018

CHONGQING - Southwest China's Chongqing municipality saw its foreign trade volume exceeding 522 billion yuan ($77.2 billion) in 2018, up 15.9 percent over the previous year, according to the municipality's customs Thursday.

Chongqing exported goods worth of 339.53 billion yuan last year, up 17.8 percent from the previous year. The city's import volume exceeded 182.73 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 12.5 percent, said Li Yu, deputy head of the Chongqing customs.

"Chongqing's more and more sophisticated processing trade has significantly contributed to the city's foreign trade growth," said Li.

Processing trade, focusing on laptops, tablet computers and CPUs, accounted for 50.4 percent of the city's foreign trade in 2018, up 4.4 percentage points from 2017.

Trade with traditional markets such as the United States and the European Union has continued to grow in 2018, while that with the Republic of Korea, India, Mexico and Canada reported more robust growth of 20 to 30 percent.

To facilitate trade, the city cut the customs clearance time for imports by 65 percent and that for exports by 94 percent in 2018, according to Li.