East China's Zhejiang province was ranked second in the nation in terms of export volume in the first quarter of this year.

During this period, the total value of imports and exports in Zhejiang increased 4.8 percent year-on-year to 1.13 trillion yuan ($160 billion), figures from Hangzhou Customs show.

Zhejiang's total export value stood at 835.67 billion yuan, an increase of 6.1 percent year-on-year, while the total import value was 296.93 billion yuan, an increase of 1 percent year-on-year.

Specifically, ASEAN surpassed the United States to become Zhejiang's second-largest trading partner. Zhejiang's trade with ASEAN, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa totaled 162.07 billion yuan, 132.19 billion yuan, 111.5 billion yuan and 86.14 billion yuan, up 17.5 percent, 9.1 percent, 14.2 percent and 22.6 percent respectively.

Robust growth was seen in the export of mechanical and new electrical products. The total export of solar cells, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries was 41.42 billion yuan, up 46.2 percent year-on-year, accounting for 5.0 percent of the province's export, driving the province's export growth by 1.7 percentage points.

According to the recent annual reports of some auto companies, new energy vehicles have become the main source of revenue growth, and overseas markets have become an important growth driver for Chinese auto brands.

In addition, there were 83,000 foreign trade enterprises in Zhejiang, an increase of 5.8 percent year-on-year. Among them were 20,000 import enterprises, an increase of 8.6 percent year-on-year. The import of private enterprises reached 19.78 billion yuan, up 4.3 percent year-on-year.