Containers are piled up at Nansha Port in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, in April. [Photo/China News Service]

Guangdong's private enterprises witnessed steady growth in import and export volume in the first eight months of the year, according to data released on Wednesday by Guangdong Customs, demonstrating their increasingly important role in the province's foreign trade development.

From January to August, private firms reached a foreign trade volume of 3.99 trillion yuan ($570 billion), up 4.8 percent year-on-year. That accounted for more than 64 percent of the province's total.

By comparison, foreign-funded and joint ventures logged 1.94 trillion yuan ($272.4 billion), a 5.6 percent year-on-year increase that made up around 31 percent of the total. State-owned enterprises, however, witnessed a year-on-year reduction of 15.3 percent to 253.2 billion yuan ($35.55 billion) over the same period.

Overall, Guangdong handled 6.21 trillion yuan ($871.97 billion) in imports and exports in the first eight months of the year, a 4.2 percent rise that outpaced the national average. The province, long a pillar of China's export economy, accounted for around one-fifth of the country's total trade.

Exports reached 3.97 trillion yuan ($557.44 billion), up 1.9 percent year-on-year, while imports climbed 8.5 percent to 2.24 trillion yuan ($314.52 billion). Much of the demand came from mechanical and electrical products, which made up nearly 70 percent of all imports and was up more than 15 percent on last year.

Guangdong also saw faster-than-average growth in trade with key partners. Commerce with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the European Union all expanded more rapidly than the province's overall rate.

Meanwhile, trade with countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative rose 4.3 percent to 2.41 trillion yuan ($338.39 billion), almost 39 percent of the province's total.