Foreign trade in Zhoushan maintains strong growth momentum in the first four months of this year. [Photo/WeChat account: china-zjftz] 

Zhoushan's foreign trade maintained strong growth momentum throughout the first four months of this year. 

Its imports and exports soared 68.2 percent year-on-year to 58 billion yuan ($8.4 billion) from January to April.

Imports stood at 39.05 billion yuan over this period, a rise of 83.2 percent, while exports registered an increase of 44 percent to 18.95 billion yuan, according to statistics recently released by Zhoushan Customs. 

The city's growth rate in terms of both imports and exports topped Zhejiang during this period. 

Its exports consisted primarily of refined oil, mechanical equipment, and aquatic products, while the main import commodities were crude oil, refined oil and iron ore, which accounted for 79 percent of the total. 

The rapid development of key industries in the Zhejiang FTZ was the main driving force behind this robust growth.

In the first quarter, Zhoushan's imports increased 2.9-fold, oil and gas throughput climbed by 52.9 percent.

The city is also offering refueling services for ships around the world. In the first four months, the oil supply rose by 12.39 percent year-on-year to 1.352 million metric tons. 

The total output value of the shipbuilding and repair industry (including only companies above a designated size) in Zhoushan increased by 14.9 percent, with the ship repair industry alone growing by 73.6 percent with a total of 756 ships being repaired.

The strong efforts by the local government to help enterprises resume operations amid the epidemic also played a huge part. 

Local authorities rolled out 10 measures to stabilize local foreign trade development, which included ramping up financial support and promoting trade facilitation.