Linyi Trade City posts 570.9 billion yuan in market transactions as sourcing conference opens

Linyi Trade City recorded 570.9 billion yuan in logistics turnover, up 8.5 percent, as the 4th Linyi Trade City International Sourcing Conference opened on Oct 28.

The three-day conference brings more than 2,000 international buyers, consolidators and freight organizers from over 110 countries and regions to Linyi in East China's Shandong province.

The Linyi International Product Selection Center, opened on Sept 28, hosts 347 companies and draws on the city's 136 specialized wholesale markets and 46,000 physical merchants, covering 12 core industries and more than 6 million product varieties across 27 categories. Buyers can source across a full range in one building rather than visiting factories individually.

"Previously, hosting an overseas buyer meant driving to factories across townships — at most two companies a day. Now the selection center concentrates the categories and samples, so we can meet 20 suppliers a day," said Guo Ning, production director of Sanxige Furniture and Building Materials Co.

Linyi has adopted a model in which one storefront links more than 10 source factories, and the center handles display, negotiation, order matching, customs clearance and international logistics as one closed loop. The city has 60 e-commerce parks and 210,000 online merchants, market transaction volume ranking first among China's prefecture-level cities, logistics costs 30 percent below the national average, TIR routes reaching the five Central Asian countries and China-Europe freight trains serving 14 European countries.

Overseas, Lanhua Group has built an overseas Linyi Trade City in Yongin, Gyeonggi province, the Republic of Korea, with coffee, pet products and willow weaving outlets under a front-shop, back-warehouse model, serving more than 300 Linyi exporters and generating over 200 million yuan in cross-border trade for merchants, with 30 percent of its merchants now using cross-border services.

Linyi has set up 11 overseas service stations and 17 new international selection centers globally, held 477 overseas trade fairs and helped more than 2,500 local companies enter foreign markets. Exports to Africa rose 45.7 percent year-on-year in the first nine months.

The city offers incentives for warehousing, logistics and market expansion, and operates market procurement trade and cross-border e-commerce pilot policies including tax exemptions for goods without invoices.

Editor：韩蒙蒙