Shanghai's Pudong reports foreign trade surge in H1

SHANGHAI, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- Shanghai's Pudong New Area saw its foreign trade volume expand 18 percent year on year to 1.3 trillion yuan (about 181.8 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half (H1) of 2023, said the Shanghai Customs on Thursday.

In H1, Pudong's imports reached 800 billion yuan while exports grew to 500 billion yuan, up 13.8 percent and 25.5 percent year on year, respectively.

Shanghai Customs said that since a guideline to support high-level reform and opening up of the Pudong New Area was published in April 2021, Pudong has been promoting the development of high-tech industries and has formed a modern industrial system led by integrated circuits, biomedicine, artificial intelligence, and new energy vehicles (NEVs).

In H1, NEVs exported from Waigaoqiao Port and Yangshan Port accounted for more than half of the total export volume of NEVs in China, demonstrating Pudong's rising role as a major export hub of domestic NEVs.

At present, Pudong New Area has gathered more than 800 integrated circuit enterprises with an industrial scale accounting for nearly one-sixth of the national total. The area also boasts over 600 key artificial intelligence enterprises with an industrial scale exceeding 120 billion yuan.