One of the first provinces in the country to open up to the outside world, Zhejiang has established exchange and cooperative relations of varied forms with more than 200 countries and regions in the world, involving such fields as economy, culture, science and technology, sports and the press. International economic exchanges and cooperation in particular holds an important position in linking up the province with the outside world.

In 2001, contracted projects and labor cooperation contracts overseas reached a total volume of US $549 million and the business volume amounted to US $673 million. Foreign trade agencies and export markets operate in multi-levels in the province. A new situation has emerged in which specialized foreign trade corporations, manufacturers that has right to engage in import and export business and foreign-invested enterprises are making joint efforts to explore international markets. In 2001, the import and export volume totaled US $32.8 billion and the export volume was US $23 billion, which showed an increase of 18.2 percent over the previous year and accounted for 21 percent of the total increment of state.The export structure has continuously become adjusted and optimized. The mechanical and electrical products accounted for the largest part of exports for the first time in the province. Meanwhile utilization of overseas capital has been expanding both in volume and scale. In 2001, 2,311 new foreign-invested enterprises were approved to be set up for operation involving a total of US $5.016 billion of foreign investment contracted and US $2.212 billion of foreign capital actually utilized. The four cities of Jiaxing, Huzhou, Hangzhou and Ningbo accounted for 83.8 percent and 83 percent respectively of the province's total sums of foreign capital contracted and utilized. Development zones in the province made up 43.7 percent and 38.8 percent respectively of Zhejiang's total sums of foreign capital contracted and actually used. The structure of foreign investment has further optimized with the number and scale of large projects and the degree of the hi-tech involved showing a gradual rise. More and more business people from Taiwan have come to invest in the province. The total volume of investment by Taiwan compatriots that has been contracted reached US$7.25 billion and the total sum used came up to US$2.77 billion, increasing by 125 percent and 91 percent over those in the previous year. Now 50-plus enterprises listed among the world top 500 have invested in Zhejiang.

To bring into full play the advantages of the processing industry, efforts have been made in Zhejiang to encourage manufacturers to develop processing industry abroad by investing in foreign countries and regions. Meanwhile, specialized markets are encouraged to set up their overseas branches to develop trans-national marketing so as to increase exports. In 2001, approval was given to 144 projects with a total investment of US $38.56 million to be established outside China. This showed an increase of 35 percent and 126 percent respectively over the figures in the previous year. Figures of the same year also registered a business volume of US $670 million, with an increase of 55 percent over the year before, pushing up Zhejiang's standing from the fifth to the third in the country. By the end of 2001, Zhejiang had set up 774 enterprises in 95 countries and regions in the world.