[Photo/Sipa] 

Foreign trade in Zhejiang province showed signs of recovery in March, thanks to many measures taken by the provincial government to boost trade, as well as the fact that the domestic COVID-19 epidemic is subsiding and companies are resuming normal operations.

Statistics from the Hangzhou Customs show that Zhejiang's imports and exports in March totaled 228.16 billion yuan ($32.27 billion), up 9.5 percent year-on-year. More specifically, exports increased 5.6 percent year-on-year to 159.1 billion yuan while the national average declined 3.5 percent. Exports also increased by a factor of 2.5 over February, higher than the national average of 1.3.

However, total foreign trade in the first quarter of the year declined by 5.4 percent over the previous year to 629.94 billion yuan, while the national average declined 6.4 percent. Exports dropped 10.4 percent, while the national average declined 11.4 percent, and imports increased 8.6 percent to 188.39 billion yuan while the national average declined 0.7 percent.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) overtook the United States as the second biggest trade market of the province in the first quarter, and it also became the province's largest source of imports. Bilateral trade between ASEAN and Zhejiang grew 6.7 percent to 84.57 billion yuan, with imports increasing 20.1 percent to 33.4 billion yuan and exports falling slightly by 0.6 percent to 51.16 billion yuan.