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2016-March-12

Internationalization of China Linyi Trade City

 

By staff reporter JIAO FENG

 

LINYI City, located in southeastern Shandong Province, sits at the conjunction of the Yangtze River Delta Economic Zone and Bohai-Rim Economic Circle. In view of the opportunities that the Belt and Road Initiative offer, Linyi anticipates a crucial period of transformation and upgrade of its business and trade and logistics industries, so to speed up its internationalization.

The year 2015 saw formal commencement of Linyi Comprehensive Bonded Zone, port of the Linyi Airport, as well as eight freight train services. The total value of exports that year to countries along the Belt and Road route topped US $6 billion. Business and trade and logistics are now pillar industries of Linyi's economy. During this year's NPC and CPPC sessions, our reporters interviewed mayor of Linyi City and NPC deputy Zhang Shuping.

 

Build Overseas Trade Centers

Zhang Shuping spoke of Linyi's pivotal location in the Belt and Road Initiative, being a gate to both the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road, and intersecting Eurasian Continental Bridge. Linyi is at present Shandong's leading commercial city, and is at the forefront of regional opening up to overseas markets. Transit cargo volume now accounts for 43 percent of its total logistics. The city is also a vital distribution center for Shandong, Jiangsu, Henan, and Anhui provinces.

"We have built several Linyi Trade Centers overseas, notably in Hungary and Kenya, among which the China-EU Trade and Logistics Cooperation Zone in Hungary is the first state-level economic and trade cooperation zone dealing exclusively in overseas trade and logistics," Zhang Shuping said. "The Linyi Trade City Bonded Center is now under construction in Germany. This year, we will build more trade centers in countries such as Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar," he added.

Linyi has ambitions to cooperate with large-scale enterprises, and to build more trading centers in Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Laos, and Egypt.

 

International Freight Lines

Linyi runs eight freight train services. They include the Linyi-Manzhouli-Europe railway export cargo service directly to Hamburg; two freight trains to Urumqi in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region from which cargoes will continue the journey towards Central Asia; and five cargo trains to Guangzhou, Kunming, Nanning, Chengdu, and Chongqing, which are connected to Eastern Europe. "There will be more freight service lines to Guiyang, Fuzhou, and Yiwu. They will open up transnational trade corridors spanning China and Central Asia, West Asia, and Southeast Asia. Based on border ports and trans-boundary logistics corridors, distribution centers and frontier warehouses will be constructed to provide businesses with comprehensive storage, distribution, custom declaration and shipping agent services," Zhang Shuping said.

 

Accelerate Cross-border E-commerce

Zhang Shuping expounded on Linyi's proactive implementation in 2015 of the Internet Plus Foreign Trade Action Plan. Its purpose is to establish a sound service system and enhance cooperation with well-known e-commerce platforms, and establish a development foundation to promote the transformation of foreign trade enterprises to cross-border e-commerce business.

"China Post Group now offers an international small package service in Linyi, so fostering new competitive e-commerce companies such as Tradesparq and GBI Double-click.cn. In the coming two years, Linyi will develop ten thousand cross-border e-commerce businesses and 50 leading e-commerce enterprises," Zhang Shuping said.