From January to November this year, Xiamen's foreign trade volume reached 840.01 billion yuan ($120.29 billion), up 3.4 percent year-on-year. Even though the total import value dropped 0.9 percent to 417.73 billion yuan, but the total export value reached 422.28 billion yuan, an increase of 8.1 percent.

During the same period, foreign trade in Xiamen's private sector hit 332.87 billion yuan, an increase of 12.3 percent, and accounted for 39.6 percent of the city's total foreign trade value, while foreign trade with State-owned and foreign-invested enterprises accounted for 35.5 percent and 24.8 percent of the total, respectively.

At the same time, Xiamen exported 184.18 billion yuan of electromechanical products, an increase of 5.9 percent, accounting for 43.6 percent of the total export volume, and metal ore imports reached 85.65 billion yuan, accounting for 20.5 percent of the total import volume.

During the 11 months, the city's trade with ASEAN, the US and the EU amounted to 166.79 billion yuan, 113.6 billion yuan and 97.68 billion yuan, respectively, a year-on-year increase of 12.5 percent, 9.4 percent and 9.8 percent.

Its trade with BRICS countries reached 86.47 billion yuan, up 28.6 percent year-on-year. Among the imports, coal, soybeans and paper pulp all increased by more than 50 percent, and exports of automatic data processing equipment and its parts, and solar cells doubled.

A bird's-eye view of Xiamen Port. [Photo/Xiamen Daily]