In the first three quarters of this year, the value of Inner Mongolia's foreign trade rose by 29.2 percent to reach 137.99 billion yuan ($18.90 billion), surpassing the growth rate in national foreign trade by 29.4 percentage points.

Of that total, exports were valued at 53.57 billion yuan, up 20.7 percent, while, imports came in at 84.42 billion yuan, up 35.3 percent.

Contributing to this significant rise, private enterprises saw imports and exports reach 103.32 billion yuan, marking a rise of 41.7 percent, to account for 74.9 percent of the region's total foreign trade value.

In contrast, the value of State-owned enterprises' imports and exports dipped 0.3 percent to 25.46 billion yuan, making up 18.4 percent of the region's total.

Additionally, foreign-invested companies recorded an export and import value of 8.69 billion yuan, marking a rise of 5.7 percent and accounting for 6.3 percent of the total.

Throughout the first three quarters, there has been significant growth in imports and exports to Mongolia and Russia. With Mongolia, trade hit 50.36 billion yuan, a rise of 61.4 percent; and with Russia, it came in at 24.66 billion yuan, up 74.7 percent.

So far this year, Hohhot Customs has introduced 21 measures to stabilize and improve the quality of foreign trade, launched 15 measures to help small and medium-sized enterprises resolve difficulties, and rolled out 48 measures to improve the local business environment.

By the end of September, the number of foreign trade enterprises in the region reached 16,800, an increase of 2,758 compared to the same period last year.