The growth rate of import volume in Guangzhou in 2019 ranked first among major foreign trade cities in China, according to a blue paper on Guangzhou's internationalization development jointly released by the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences (GZASS) and Social Sciences Academic Press (China), Guangzhou Daily reported on Aug 20.

Wu Qing, director of the Institute of International Studies of GZASS, said that Guangzhou's efforts in speeding up the cultivation of new trade models, as well as in making innovations to lead trade development have greatly contributed to the city's ranking.

Guangzhou has been pushing forward several national pilot constructions for areas like cross-border e-commerce, market procurement, parallel automobile imports, and innovative development of service trade, achieving remarkable outcomes.

The city has ranked first in China in terms of cross-border e-commerce for five consecutive years. Guangzhou's market procurement amount and bonded logistics amount in 2019 accounted for nearly a quarter of the city's overall foreign trade volume.

The city's parallel car import amount in 2019 increased by 1.5 times than that in 2018, ranking second in China for the third consecutive year.

The blue paper noted that foreign investment is one of the major supports for Guangzhou's economic development and industrial structure optimization.

A total of 3,446 companies and 1,110 projects with direct foreign investment were set up in Guangzhou in 2019, realizing $7.14 billion in foreign capital utilization, an 8.1 percent year-on-year increase.