Nantong generated more than $31.65 billion in foreign trade in 2014, ranking it fourth in Jiangsu province.
The amount was a 6.2 percent growth from a year earlier and was higher than the nation's average.
The boom in trade was helped by the impressive performance of local businesses.
At last year's Canton Fair, a biannual trade event in Guangdong province, more than 13,000 companies from Nantong displayed their products and technologies. Their combined exhibition area was the largest of the Jiangsu delegation.
The NETDA Free Trade Zone got the original go-ahead, on Jan 3, 2013, from the State Council, for a 5.29-sq-km area, in two parts.
Suzhou-Nantong science & technology industrial park
Equipment manufacturing industrial park
Urban-rural commercial zone
Nengda central business district
New materials industrial park
Medical treatment & health industrial park
Sci-tech industrial park
Precision machinery industrial park