Trade specialists a boon to local enterprises

Despite a global economic slowdown, Shandong province's new trade facilitation measures have led to a 2.4 percent year-on-year increase in foreign trade in the first half of this year.

"Among the top 10 provinces in foreign trade, Shandong is the only one that had growth in the three areas of trade volume, exports and imports," said Lyu Wei, deputy chief of the Shandong Commerce Bureau.

Statistics from the bureau show the province's foreign trade totaled 714 billion yuan ($107 billion) in the first half of this year. Exports amounted to 417.79 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.7 percent and imports reached 296 billion yuan, up 2 percent.

The growth can be partly attributed to the cultivation of specialized companies which help manufacturers conduct foreign trade business.

Zhang Yi, general manager of Shandong Wanlin Package Co Ltd, had never expected to have such a big market out of China. The company was already a major provider of packages for many Chinese brands, including dairy giant Yili.

Last year, the company assigned its foreign trade business to Jinan Qingong International Trade Co Ltd, a provider of comprehensive foreign trade services.

"Qingong is like a manager for us," Zhang said. "It not only brings us more orders from new markets, but saves us a lot of costs in conducting foreign trade."

Qingong is one of 21 leading enterprises in Shandong that provide foreign trade services.

China's local government launched measures to encourage comprehensive foreign trade companies to provide import and export services for manufacturing enterprises so that they can focus more on production than trade.

"As a new business model, the foreign trade companies have greatly helped the small and medium-sized enterprises in tapping overseas markets," said Cai Peian, an official at Shandong Commerce Bureau.

During the first half of this year, the 21 foreign trade companies' export business reached 8.55 billion yuan.

Shandong has also launched a series of measures to promote cross-border e-commerce. A total of 26.74 billion yuan worth of trade was conducted through cross-border e-commerce platforms during the first half of this year, an increase of 27.3 percent year on year.

Another government measure to facilitate trade has been giving more autonomy to oil refining companies in importing crude oil.

As more local oil refineries have been given approval to import crude oil, those imports reached 22.23 million tons during the first half of this year, generating 38.86 billion yuan in revenue, 2.4 times more than the same period in 2015.

Promoting trade with countries along the Belt and Road routes also helped Shandong's foreign trade grow.

Exports to countries along the routes reached 116.5 billion yuan during the first half of this year, an increase of 11.5 percent year-on-year. Of that, exports to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations increased 8.2 percent and those to Russia increased 64 percent.

Huang Shuren, vice-president of Yantai International Container Terminals Co Ltd, said the number of containers sent to South Korea from the company's terminals saw a year-on-year increase of 10 percent during the first half of this year, thanks to the China-ROK Free Trade Agreement.

Cashing in on the FTA, Shandong has developed China-ROK industrial and demonstration parks in Yantai and Weihai to promote cooperation. Distribution centers for commodities from the countries along the Belt and Road routes have been built in Qingdao, Yantai, Weifang, Weihai, Rizhao and Linyi to boost foreign trade.