Shanghai witnessed a positive growth of foreign trade in June, reversing the sharp drop of the previous  two months.
 
The total trade of foreign goods reached 374.07 billion yuan ($55 billion) in June, an increase of 9.6 percent year-on-year, according to data from the Shanghai branch of the National Bureau of Statistics released on Monday. 

In May, Shanghai’s foreign trade experienced a negative growth of 13.7 percent year-on-year, after  a decline of 36.5 percent in April.

The numbers are also in line with data from the General Administration of Customs. The Shanghai customs authorities said that its foreign trade recorded a “V-shape” recovery in the first half of this year. As production and social activities resumed in June, trading conducted by Shanghai-based firms grew 9.6 percent year-on-year and trading through Shanghai ports rose 2.8 percent, an increase of over 40 percentage points compared to data in April. 

Meanwhile, international standard container throughput of the Shanghai Port reached 22.552 million TEUs in the first half of this year, keeping the first spot in the world, according to the Shanghai Statistics Bureau. 

In the first ten days of July, the average daily container throughput of the Shanghai Port has exceeded 130,000 TEUs, surpassing the level of the same period last year.

Shanghai's foreign trade was most affected by the epidemic from April to May, but in June there was a clear reversal that shows foreign trade has returned to normal levels, said Liang Ming, a senior official from the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, local online news outlet Yicai reported.

The epidemic has not changed the investment confidence of overseas companies on Shanghai and China, as data showed that foreign direct investment hit $12.47 billion in the first half of this year, a 0.2 percent year-on-year increase.

Shanghai recorded a total GDP of 1.9 trillion yuan  in the first half of this year, recovering to 94.3 percent of the same period last year.