Dongguan in South China's Guangdong province is a busy port on the Pearl River.

Guangdong's foreign trade with the countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative reached more than 3.04 trillion yuan ($434.29 billion) in 2023, up one percent year-on-year.

The figure represented 36.6 percent of the province's total, a 0.3 percentage points increase over the previous year, statistics from Guangdong Customs revealed.

The southern province's import and export with Latin America and Africa saw a year-on-year growth of 7.5 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively, last year.

Meanwhile, Guangdong's trade with the United States and the European Union recovered in the last three months of last year. The province hit a trade volume with these partners of 1 trillion yuan and 970 billion yuan, respectively, representing 12.1 percent and 11.7 percent of the year's total.

The sustainable growth of foreign trade with emerging markets and the recovery with developed economies have helped Guangdong, which relies heavily on foreign trade for sustainable economic development, achieve a total foreign trade volume of more than 8.3 trillion yuan in 2023, up 0.3 percent year-on-year, said Wen Zhencai, deputy director of Guangdong Customs. He made the remarks on Tuesday at a news conference in Guangzhou, the province's capital.

The province, a global production base, sold 5.4 trillion yuan worth of products abroad, up 2.5 percent year-on-year, while purchasing goods valued at 2.9 trillion yuan from the rest of the world, a year-on-year reduction of 3.6 percent, he said.

"Guangdong's foreign trade volume represented 19.9 percent of the country's total last year, continuing to be the biggest foreign trader of the country," he said.

According to Wen, Guangdong's lithium battery, solar cell and electric passenger vehicle exports increased by 33.7 percent last year.

Guangdong's export of mechanical and electrical products reached 3.56 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.9 percent, accounting for 65.4 percent of the province's total.

Due to the strong domestic demand, Guangdong imported more than 158 million metric tons of bulk commodities, including energy, minerals and grains in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 32.5 percent.

Of them, imported energy products, including crude oil, natural gas and coals, reached 82.88 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 47.6 percent. Meanwhile, Guangdong has increased the imports of livelihood goods to meet the growing domestic consumption demand, said Wen.

Guangdong purchased agricultural products worth 221.33 billion yuan last year, a year-on-year increase of 3.2 percent, and consumer goods valued at 285.07 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 0.2 percent, he added.