The Yangtze River Delta region, China's foreign trade hub, saw its foreign trade reach a high of 11.07 trillion yuan (about 1.56 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first eight months of this year, up 5.5 percent year on year, according to the latest official data released by the Hangzhou Customs.
The Yangtze River Delta region encompasses Shanghai and the three provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui.

Data showed that the import and export volume of the Yangtze River Delta region during the January-August period accounted for 37.4 percent of the total value of the country's foreign trade.

Specifically, exports in the area reached 7.08 trillion yuan (about 0.99 trillion U.S. dollars), up 9.2 percent, accounting for 40.2 percent of the total national export value, which contributed 52.3 percent to the overall growth of national exports.

The Yangtze River Delta is home to 26 national-level advanced manufacturing clusters, covering a wide range of fields such as large aircraft, marine engineering equipment, and high-tech ships. These clusters have become a key foundation for driving the region's goods trade toward medium- and high-end development.