East China's Shanghai city saw the value of its foreign trade surge in May, with the total import and export volume hitting 275.93 billion yuan ($41.28 billion), up 25.9 percent from the previous month.

Breaking that down, exports totaled 106.09 billion yuan, up 52.4 percent month-on-month, while imports increased 13.6 percent to 169.84 billion yuan.

According to statistics from Shanghai Customs, the city's total value of imports and exports in the first five months of the year was 1.5 trillion yuan, down 2.8 percent from the same period last year.

The data showed that exports of automobiles and mobile phones increased significantly from January to May – the export value of both categories surged to 33.53 billion yuan and 23.58 billion yuan, up 98.9 percent and 129.7 percent, respectively on the previous corresponding period.

Shanghai's imports and exports by general trade amounted to 904.41 billion yuan, up 1.3 percent, accounting for 60.2 percent of the total value of foreign trade in the first five months.