Foreign trade in east China's Shanghai Port grew 22.3 percent year-on-year to reach 429 billion U.S. dollars last year, according to statistics from the Shanghai Customs.

This was nearly a quarter of the country's total volume of imports and exports, statistics show.

In 2006, the Shanghai Port saw total exports of 267 billion dollars and imports of 162 billion dollars, up 25.2 percent and 17.3 percent respectively from a year earlier.

The European Union (EU) remained the largest trading partner of the Shanghai Port last year, with two-way trade growing 23.8 percent year-on-year to reach 87 billion dollars.

The United States and Japan were the port's second and third largest trading partners.

In 2006, bilateral trade between the Shanghai Port and the United States stood at 82 billion dollars, up 27.6 percent from a year earlier, while two-way trade between the Shanghai Port and Japan reached 65 billion dollars, up 14.1 percent.

Source: Xinhua