Data from Qingdao Customs show that Qingdao’s imports and exports with the countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative in the first ten months of 2024 totaled RMB 378.97 bln, representing 50.2% of the city’s gross imports and exports, with exports gaining 10.7%, 2.7 percentage points higher than the national average growth rate.

 Prioritizing the Belt and Road Cooperation in a high-quality manner, Qingdao Customs works hard to facilitate the building of an international logistics channel, and break new ground in opening China further through links running eastward and westward, across land and over sea in an effort to continue to unleash new drivers of growth for the Belt and Road Cooperation. In response to the Maritime Silk Road,  Shandong’s exceptional marine resources will be fully utilized to build a world-class cluster of ports. Support will be stepped up to build inland ports, and launch new modes of supervision for sea-railway or sea-air multimodal transport in a bid to open new ground in connection over land and sea. As for the Silk Road Economic Belt, Qingdao will give play to the guiding role of the “11+1” inter-customs cooperation mechanism across the Yellow River basin, and implement the new round of 15 support measures launched by customs to make the logistic channel across the Yellow River unimpeded. Qingdao will continue to improve regulatory measures, facilitate the growth of China-Europe freight trains, and work hard to foster transit, e-commerce and cold chain-themed freight train lines to make new headway.

(Liu Lanxing)