CHONGQING - Southwest China's Chongqing municipality's import and export volume in the first half of 2012 reached over $25 billion, with the growth rate ranking first in the country.

According to statistics released by the Bureau of Statistics of Chongqing, the import and export volume of Chongqing from January to June increased by 1.7 times from a year earlier.

The growth rate was 166 percentage points higher than the national average.

Statistics showed that the export volume of Chongqing totaled over $18 billion, up 2.5 times year-on-year, and the import volume was $6.9 billion, up 77.4 percent from the same period in 2011.

Both the import and export growth rate ranked first in the country.

Experts of Chongqing Foreign Trade & Economic Relations Commission said that rapid development of the processing industry had boosted the growth of imports and exports in Chongqing.

The import and export volume in the processing industry of Chongqing in the first half of 2012 totaled $7.8 billion, accounting for 31.1 percent of the whole import and export volume.

In addition, the expansion of the private enterprises also promoted the surge of the import and export growth.

From January to June, private enterprises generated $11.9 billion in import and export volume with an increase of 2.4 times year-on-year, according to statistics.