Guangdong's trade volume with its top three trade partners — the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Hong Kong Special Administrative region and European Union — grew year-on-year by 10.8 percent, 40.5 percent and 10.4 percent respectively in the first four months, hitting 540.55 billion yuan ($79.49 billion), 521.24 billion yuan and 379.85 billion yuan each.

The southern province's imports and exports with Japan and South Korea also enjoyed year-on-year growth of more than 30 percent to reach 34.3 percent and 30.4 percent from January to April, according to a statement released by Guangdong Customs on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Guangdong's trade growth in Australia, the five Central Asian countries, Africa and India also outpaced the overall average, rising by 51.4 percent, 24.1 percent, 21.4 percent and 19 percent respectively, said the statement.

The continuous trend of market diversification has helped Guangdong, a global innovation hub, achieve a trade volume of 3.49 trillion yuan between January and April, up year-on-year 18.4 percent.

The province sold 2.06 trillion yuan worth of products abroad, accounting for a year-on-year increase of 11.4 percent, while its imports grew even faster at 30.1 percent year-on-year to hit 1.43 trillion yuan in the four months, it said.

Guangdong's trade growth rate stood at 3.5 percentage points higher than the national average, with its share of China's total foreign trade volume rising 0.6 percentage points year-on-year to 21.5 percent, while its contribution to national trade growth in the same period stood at 25.8 percent.

Private enterprises led the growth in the province's import and export volume in the first four months, firmly maintaining their position as the largest foreign trade entity and demonstrating their increasingly important role in the province's overall trade development.

From January to April, the province's private firms reached a foreign trade volume of 2.33 trillion yuan, up 24 percent year-on-year, 5.6 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate, accounting for 66.8 percent of Guangdong's total trade volume.

In the same period, foreign-invested enterprises maintained a sound growth momentum, with imports and exports totaling 1.04 trillion yuan, an increase of 12.4 percent and accounting for 29.8 percent of the total, it said.

Insiders attributed Guangdong's fast import growth to the strong domestic demand.

In the first four months, Guangdong's imports of mechanical and electrical products reached 955.96 billion yuan, up 24.9 percent year-on-year, accounting for 67.1 percent of the province's total import value.

Among them, imports of integrated circuits stood at 541.62 billion yuan, rising by 37.7 percent year-on-year, while imports of computer parts and accessories amounted to 106.9 billion yuan, surging 3.1 times.

Imports of high-quality consumer goods such as edible vegetable oil, beef, edible aquatic products and dairy products increased by 149 percent, 72.3 percent, 10.9 percent and 10.8 percent respectively, it said.