Linyi Trade City builds full-chain trade ecosystem to serve global buyers

Inside the Linyi International Product Selection Center in Linyi, East China's Shandong province, an Egyptian buyer walked past rows of source-factory displays and spelled out what draws overseas merchants here: the chance to deal directly with manufacturers and carry good products to the world.

The buyer, known as Aymond, attended a matchmaking session at the center during the fourth Linyi Trade City International Sourcing Conference held from Oct 28 to 30, carrying a procurement list of $5 million for office equipment destined for an office building inside an airport in Ghana. He has traded across China for years and has since registered his own international trade company in Linyi.

The selection center, officially opened on Sept 28, is the newest window in the trade city's opening-up arsenal. Its promise — one building, the whole trade city — rests on two foundations Linyi has spent decades building. The city has cultivated 13 signature industry chains, from high-end engineering machinery and high-grade panels to green smart home products, backed by mature clusters in textiles, hardware, labor-protection supplies and plastic goods, so that upstream and downstream partners sit close enough for many overseas orders to be filled locally in one go. And as China's "famed market city" and "capital of logistics", Linyi Trade City runs 136 specialized wholesale markets — the largest market cluster in the country — with more than 3,000 domestic logistics lines reaching every county-level city and port, at logistics costs about 30 percent below the national average.

Goods leave Linyi for Central Asia, Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia through multimodal channels including China-Europe freight trains, TIR road transport and sea-rail combined services. Liu Yongqiang, board chairman of Linyi Trade City Group Development Co and deputy general manager of Lanshan Industrial Development Group, said the center keeps importing global procurement resources, runs a professional foreign trade service team and is building an international logistics park, completing a closed loop of selection, display, transaction, logistics and delivery.

Policy support runs alongside. Linyi Trade City's high-quality development has been incorporated into provincial strategy, with measures supporting overseas exhibition participation, overseas warehouse construction and cross-border e-commerce to lower the threshold for small and medium merchants going global.

The fourth sourcing conference brought more than 2,000 international buyers from over 110 countries and regions face to face with Linyi enterprises, converting policy dividends and industrial advantages into concrete orders. The trade city's management committee said it will keep improving the selection center, the international trade center and 24-hour services for foreign merchants, and optimize customs clearance, logistics and matchmaking across the chain.

The city is also advancing an internationalization program of "six one" priority projects, building a one-stop service system covering foreign-related administration, residence, education, healthcare and business travel. In Lanshan district, the trade city's core area, Ramada and Crowne Plaza hotels anchor a growing international living circle; four schools have been upgraded, the north city campus of Linyi People's Hospital offers foreign-language medical services, and an international community at West Bank Park is essentially complete.

The Linyi Trade City International Trade Service Hall now integrates 119 foreign-related services from 15 departments into 12 "one thing, one visit" scenarios, while the IMC international trade center combines customs healthcare, foreign-related legal services, international certification and tax-trade services under one roof. "Industry as the base, platforms to gather merchants, logistics to move goods, policy to empower, services to flourish trade," a committee official said, describing the trade city's course from a traditional goods distribution hub to a distribution center radiating worldwide.

Editor：韩蒙蒙