Shanghai's foreign trade continued to maintain high growth in July, with a single month of trade volume hitting a record high, data revealed by Shanghai customs showed on Thursday, a strong pillar that injected momentum to foreign trade of the Yangtze River Delta after recovery from the COVID-19 epidemic.

According to Shanghai Customs District, in July, total trade volume of the city exceeded 400 billion yuan ($58.9 billion) to 404.2 billion yuan for the first time in history. Exports and imports increased 32.9 percent and 16.4 percent on a yearly basis, respectively.

New energy industry exports continued to eye a rapid development. The export volume of electric passenger cars, lithium batteries and solar cells reached 5.52 billion yuan, 2.75 billion yuan, 1.09 billion yuan, an increase of 19.5 percent, 560.9 percent and 197.4 percent, respectively, pulling the city's export growth up 3 percentage points.

On Monday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter that the company’s Shanghai Gigafactory completed its millionth vehicle, which accounts for one third of the company's total vehicle production.

With the acceleration of the resumption of work and production, Shanghai’s local economy has returned to normal, strongly boosting the city’s consumption and industrial raw material imports.

Consumer goods imports reached 49.95 billion yuan, an increase of 12.3 percent, pulling the city's import growth up 2.8 percentage points, the first time that the index has recorded positive growth since March this year.

Accelerated production of Shanghai’s key industries has driven the import of related raw materials and components. Imports of integrated circuits and semiconductor manufacturing equipment increased 23.2 percent and 42.2 percent.

The rapid recovery of Shanghai’s ports also contributed to the city’s foreign trade in the previous month.

According to the China Media Group, in July, container throughput of Shanghai port completed more than 4.3 million TEUs, a record high for the same period in history, with a year-on-year growth of more than 16 percent.

Shanghai’s July-performance formed the backbone for strong foreign trade across the Yangtze River Delta region. Data from the General Administration of Customs showed that in July, the region’s foreign trade volume increased 25.7 percent on a yearly basis, with the contribution to the national foreign trade growth exceeding 50 percent.