Guangdong's trade volume up substantially

Guangdong province had external trade volume of more than 671.59 billion yuan ($104.12 billion) in April, up 22.4 percent year-on-year, Guangdong Customs said on Friday.

The province, China's biggest external trader, sold 397.79 billion yuan worth of products abroad while purchasing foreign products valued at 273.8 billion yuan last month, up year-on-year by 23.1 percent and 21.4 percent, respectively.

Both exports and imports reached record highs in a single month, customs authorities said in a statement on Friday.

The strong performance in April has helped Guangdong, a major production base in the world, reach a total foreign trade volume of more than 2.5 trillion yuan in the first four months of the year, up 30.3 percent year-on-year and representing more than 21.5 percent of the country's total, the statement said.

China's foreign trade saw year-on-year growth of 28.5 percent from January to April, it said.

Guangdong's export volume was 1.52 trillion yuan during the four months ending in April, up 36.2 percent year-on-year, while imports came to slightly more than 979 billion yuan, up 22 percent, the statement said.

Guangdong's trade with its top trading partners — Taiwan, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the European Union and the United States — saw positive growth between January and April, the statement said.

The province's import and export volume with the United States even increased by 49.9 percent year-on-year to top 275 billion yuan in the first four months.

Insiders said Guangdong's external trade would continue to grow in the coming months, benefiting from the global economic recovery and an increase in demand from overseas markets.