Shanghai's total exports and imports hit 2.87 trillion yuan ($478 million) last year, up 4.6 percent year-on-year and 2.3 percentage points higher than national average, Shanghai customs said.

The city's export value reached 1.29 trillion yuan, up 1.9 percent year-on-year, and its import value was 1.58 trillion yuan, 6.9 percent higher than 2013, said Zheng Jugang, deputy-director of Shanghai customs.

This is the first time Shanghai's foreign trade increased faster than the national average since 2010, thanks to the contribution of Shanghai Free Trade Zone, which was created in late 2013 to promote international trade, financial and government reforms. Statistics show the FTZ's import and export total was 762.38 billion yuan, or 26.6 percent of the city's total for last year, up 8.3 percent year-on-year, and 3.7 percentage points higher than the growth of the city's import and export. And 46.7 percent of Shanghai's foreign trade growth last year comes from the FTZ.

Zheng Jugang released the boom of local trade enterprises is another booster for the fast rise of Shanghai's export and import last year, when Shanghai's general trade, which accounts for the 47.2 percent of the total trade, hit 1.35 trillion yuan, up 8.1 percent year-on-year. The city's processing trade, which accounts for 27.6 percent of the total, hit 792.43 billion yuan, up 148.3 percent year-on-year.

"The growth of general trade shows Shanghai has a stronger initiative in foreign trade. More and more enterprises can decide on their own how to process, rather than following orders of foreign companies," said Liang Danhong, head of the statistics division of the Shanghai customs.

"The robust growth of the processing trade means the added value of the city's processing trade increases fast, because the enterprises' techniques and product quality are increasingly acknowledged by the world market," Liang added.

The increase of local trade enterprises' power boosts the upgrading of the import-export commodity structure. According to customs, electronic information facilities, and biomedicine products were Shanghai's fastest-growing export commodities last year. The values of the export mobile phone and medicines are 78.95 billion yuan and 14.36 billion yuan, up 53.7 percent and 5.2 percent year-on-year respectively.

Shanghai is a national distributing center for imported consumption commodities, which reached 275.18 billion yuan last year, up 18.2 percent year-on-year, which accounts for 29.4 percent of the national total, and contributes to 41.8 percent of the city's import-export growth last year.

The global economy will continue to recover this year. The International Monetary Fund raised its prediction of world economic growth this year to 3.8 percent from 3.3 percent. Despite this, Shanghai still faces some trade problems.

"Shanghai's import and export mainly rely on the European Union, the United States and Japan. But the EU and Japan's recovery are still weak. These economies' fluctuation will have an obvious influence on Shanghai's trade," said Zheng Jugang. "The enterprises having foreign investment still occupy the dominant position in Shanghai's foreign trade, and the labor-intensive industries remain the main force in Shanghai's export."