The foreign trade volume of Qianhai Comprehensive Bonded Area reached 188.1 billion yuan (US$26.20 billion) between January and October, up 54.% year on year, data from Shenzhen Customs showed yesterday.

The Qianhai and Shekou area of the China (Guangdong) Pilot Free Trade Zone was recently designated as one of the demonstration areas for facilitating foreign trade by the Central Government.

Customs officials check documents for goods just outside Shenzhen Qianhai Comprehensive Bonded Zone. Courtesy of Shenzhen Customs

To help stabilize global supply chain, Shenzhen Customs has ramped up its support for Qianhai to build an international trading center for electronic components and integrated circuits, and to create an ICT industrial cluster. Leading companies like Honor, Alibaba Cloud, ByteDance and logistics companies like Sinotrans and Eachain have been attracted to start operation in the bonded area.

Between January and October, the imports of electronic components including integrated circuits in the bonded area reached 61.62 billion yuan, up 51.8% year on year.

The city’s foreign trade grew by 6.1% year on year to reach 2.97 trillion yuan in the first 10 months of the year. Exports reached 1.77 trillion yuan, up 21.1% year on year, while imports dropped by 6.7% to 1.2 trillion yuan, data showed.

Among it, general trade increased by 7.8% to 1.52 trillion yuan, while process trade increased by 1.9% to 740.7 billion yuan. Trade through bonded logistics increased by 8.1% to 699.7 billion yuan.

The trade with RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) partners, Belt and Road Initiative countries and Central and Eastern European countries reached 818.4 billion yuan, 719 billion yuan and 57.1 billion yuan, up 11.1%, 18.6% and 18.2%, respectively.

In the first 10 months, the added value of industrial enterprises above designated size increased by 6.2% year on year, data showed.

In terms of sectors, the added value of automakers above designated size went up by 112.1% year on year, while the oil and natural gas sector went up by 6.7%.

“The city’s foreign trade is recovering and maintaining a strong momentum,” said Zhou Junmin, director of the Industrial Economy Research Institute of the China Development Institute. “It shows the vitality of Shenzhen’s economy.”