Shandong enterprises' foreign trade showing promising growth

Engineering machinery is loaded at Yantai Port, Shandong province, for export to Indonesia. TANG KE/FOR CHINA DAILY

On the white cardboard production line of Shandong Sun Paper Group in Jining, employees are busy working on 7,000 metric tons of high-grade card packaging paper for an urgent order.

The company's intelligent control system produces rolls of white high-grade card packaging paper, which are then loaded into containers on the China-Europe freight train at Yanzhou North Railway Station for delivery to Europe after being packaged.

In recent years, the company has been taking advantage of foreign trade policies that include launching China-Europe freight trains and implementing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement, accelerating its expansion in overseas markets, and establishing stable sales channels worldwide, said Li Lu, chairman of Sun Paper Group.

In 2022, the foreign trade volume of Shandong province reached 3.33 trillion yuan ($482.85 billion), an increase of 13.8 percent year-on-year, and its exports reached 2.03 trillion yuan, an increase of 16.2 percent. There were 64,500 enterprises with actual import and export performance.

According to local customs statistics, in January this year, Qingdao Customs, Jinan Customs and the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Shandong Sub-council issued 13,000 RCEP certificates of origin with a total export value of 3.43 billion yuan, which is an increase of 66.4 percent and 20.1 percent year-on-year, respectively.