Taizhou's foreign trade maintained stable growth in the first half of this year, local media reported on July 25.

According to Taizhou Customs, the city's import and export volume edged up 1.1 percent year-on-year to 82.08 billion yuan ($12.2 billion) over the six-month period, ranking sixth in Zhejiang province. Imports stood at 75.63 billion yuan, an increase of 6.4 percent.

Notably, the city's trade with countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative was valued at 26.33 billion yuan, accounting for 32.1 percent of its total trade.

The figure represented an increase of 10.7 percent over the same period last year.

According to Jin Shuai, head of statistics and analysis at Taizhou Customs, the city's exports are expanding rapidly, with trade relations growing mainly in Central and Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.

He noted that the situation was particularly evident in the first half of this year and attributed it to the promotion of the BRI.

A total of 4,156 businesses from the city traded with BRI countries over the January-June period, accounting for more than 70 percent of the total, according to Jin.

Zhejiang China-Africa Foreign Trade Port Co's trade with BRI countries soared 71.7 percent to 660 million yuan, while the number for Tianyu Pharm Co, another company based in Taizhou, was 330 million yuan, representing a yearly uptick of 83.5 percent.

As primary economic growth contributors, private businesses still account for the lion's share of Taizhou's foreign trade. Official data shows that the trade volume for private businesses in the first half of this year surged 7.5 percent to 68.03 billion yuan, accounting for 89.9 percent of the total.

It is also worth mentioning that, due to Sino-US trade frictions, Taizhou's exports to the US slid 2.7 percent to 14.6 billion over the period.