The latest data released by Ningbo Customs shows that in 2024, private enterprises in Ningbo achieved import and export of 1.09 trillion yuan, becoming the third city after Shenzhen and Shanghai to have an annual foreign trade scale of private enterprises exceeding one trillion yuan, which also highlights the resilience and contribution of private enterprises under global uncertainty.

The "Ten Billion City of Foreign Trade" itself is not uncommon. According to customs data in 2024, there are already 7 cities with a scale of trillions of domestic and foreign trade, namely Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou, Ningbo, Dongguan and Guangzhou. Ningbo itself also exceeded the trillion-dollar scale ahead of schedule in the first 11 months of 2021. What is breakthrough is that this year, private enterprises alone achieved the trillion-dollar goal.

It is precisely with the flexible response of private enterprises that Ningbo's import, export and export have achieved double-digit growth, and has risen from sixth in 2023 to fifth in 2023 in the top 10 foreign trade rankings.

First Financial Daily sorted out data from the General Administration of Customs. The top 10 cities in the country in 2024 are: Shenzhen, Shanghai, Suzhou, Ningbo, Dongguan, Jinhua, Guangzhou, Beijing, Hangzhou and Qingdao.

What is even more powerful than Ningbo is Shenzhen, which ranked second in 2023, jumped to the national foreign trade "champion" in 2024 with a growth rate of 16.4%.

In addition to returning to the top of mainland foreign trade cities after 9 years, Shenzhen itself has also achieved more breakthroughs - the import and export scale of 4.5 trillion yuan in 2024 exceeded 4 trillion yuan for the first time, and the year-on-year growth rate of 16.4% was 11.4 and 6.6 percentage points faster than that of the whole country and Guangdong Province respectively. Imports and exports were also historically highs, of which, exports were 2.81 trillion yuan, an increase of 14.6%, achieving 32 consecutive championships; imports were 1.69 trillion yuan, an increase of 19.6%.

The last of the 88.38 million customs declaration forms in 2024 records the export information of a private enterprise in Shenzhen. This customs declaration form puts an end to China's foreign trade import and export in 2024. It was also in this year that the proportion of foreign trade of private enterprises in Shenzhen exceeded 70% for the first time.

In 2024, Shenzhen's private enterprises had nearly 47,000 import and export performance, accounting for nearly 90% of the total number of enterprises, with a total import and export of 3.16 trillion yuan, an increase of 24.2%, 7.8 percentage points faster than Shenzhen's overall and 70.1% of the total value of the same period, an increase of 4.4 percentage points from 2023, becoming the main driving force for Shenzhen's foreign trade growth.

The number of private enterprises in Ningbo accounts for more than 90%, while the scale of foreign trade is close to 80%. Data shows that in 2024, the number of private enterprises in Ningbo has increased to nearly 27,000, accounting for 90.9% of the total number of foreign trade enterprises in Ningbo during the same period, of which the number of private enterprises with foreign trade scale exceeding 100 million yuan increased to 1,690. During the same period, Ningbo private enterprises imported and exported RMB 1.09 trillion, an increase of 13%, accounting for 76.6% of the city's total import and export value.

The total import and export value rose from sixth to fifth place, and Ningbo's export scale ranks fourth among cities in the country, second only to Shenzhen, Shanghai and Suzhou.

Another city that has significantly increased in 2024 is Jinhua, which owns the "world's small commodity capital" Yiwu. The leap from 12th place in 2023 to among the top 10 in the country has also allowed Jinhua to surpass Hangzhou for the first time and ranked second in Zhejiang Province.

According to Zhejiang Jinhua Customs, Jinhua's foreign trade scale reached a new high in 2024, with a total foreign trade import and export value of 879.49 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.3%, ranking first in Zhejiang Province. Exports as its strength, Jinhua's exports reached 771.92 billion yuan last year, an increase of 16.4% year-on-year, accounting for 19.8% of Zhejiang Province, setting a record high.

Nearly 80% of Jinhua's imports and exports are contributed by Yiwu, while Yiwu's private economy accounts for more than 90% of market entities and achieves more than 90% of GDP. In the first 11 months of 2024, the total import and export value of Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province exceeded 600 billion yuan, an increase of 17.6% year-on-year. Among them, exports were 542.06 billion yuan, an increase of 17.4% year-on-year; imports were 71.93 billion yuan, an increase of 19.0% year-on-year. Imports, exports, exports and imports accounted for 12.8%, 15.2% and 5.8% of the province's share, respectively, with a share of 1.2, 1.1 and 0.9 percentage points respectively.

Faced with the trend of fragmentation of global orders, the market procurement model has a significant driving effect on local and even surrounding exports. In the first 11 months of 2024, Yiwu City exported 435.02 billion yuan through market procurement and trade, an increase of 21.7% year-on-year, accounting for 80.3% of Yiwu's total export value, driving Yiwu's export growth by 16.8 percentage points. According to data from Zhejiang China Small Commodity City Group Co., Ltd., in 2024, the average daily flow of people in the Yiwu small commodity market was 224,300, of which the average daily average foreign supermarket was 3,900, a record high in 10 years.

In addition to the city cases that have achieved leaps among the top 10 foreign trade, from a national perspective, the contribution of private enterprises is also continuing to increase. In 2024, my country's private enterprises imported and exported 24.33 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.8%, and its share of the country's total foreign trade value increased to 55.5%, continuing to become the largest foreign trade business entity.

Official data also shows that private enterprises achieved three "first" imports and exports in 2024, namely, the number of private enterprises with import and export performance exceeded 600,000 for the first time, reaching 609,000; private enterprises became the largest import and export entities of high-tech products in my country for the first time; private enterprises accounted for more than 50% of my country's consumer goods imports for the first time, an increase of 2.8 percentage points year-on-year to 51.3%, of which more than 60% of daily chemical products, fruits and other products were.