BEIJING, July 16 -- Foreign trade in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region logged a historic high in the first half of this year, data from the statistics bureaus shows on Tuesday.

The region saw its foreign trade increase by 4.6 percent year on year to 2.54 trillion yuan (around 356.9 billion U.S. dollars) in the first six months of this year, up 4.6 percent year on year.

Of the total, exports rose 6.4 percent year on year to 673.87 billion yuan, while imports reached 1.87 trillion yuan, up 3.9 percent year on year. The region's foreign trade accounted for 12 percent of the country's total in the period.

Beijing, in particular, registered a total foreign trade of 1.83 trillion yuan during the period, accounting for 72 percent of the region's total.

The emerging industries continued to drive the region's export growth in the first half of this year. During the same period, exports of the new generation of information technology, medicine and health, aerospace and automotive industries increased by 18.3 percent, 16 percent, 17.3 percent and 54.6 percent, respectively, year on year.

China initiated the strategy of coordinating the development of the national capital of Beijing and neighboring Tianjin Municipality and Hebei Province in early 2014 to create a model with a better economic structure, a cleaner environment, and improved public services.