Riding the Waves at the Forefront

The foreign trade import and export volume accounts for 22.5% of the city's total, with a year-on-year growth of 25.7%. Both the total volume and growth rate rank first in the city. Among these figures, the import and export volume of cross-border e-commerce saw a year-on-year increase of 121.5% year-on-year, accounting for 90% of the city's total. Upon reviewing the "half-year economic report" of the Comprehensive Bonded Zone, amidst stable conditions and gradual scale expansion, the momentum of "progress" is increasingly apparent, delivering a noteworthy "achievement report".

On July 26, at the Weifang Cross-border E-commerce "Four-in-One" Comprehensive Operation Center, order-picking forklifts maneuvered through the shelving area, automatically identifying and avoiding obstacles. Shelf items were sorted via an automatic sorting line, and then sent to designated areas for loading and dispatching globally. "In the first half of this year, companies have already exceeded last year's total import and export volume." Han Dianlong, warehouse manager of Weifang Huida Supply Chain Co., Ltd., explained that as a cross-border E-commerce company specializing in exporting auto and motorcycle parts, their warehouse and picking efficiency has significantly improved thanks to the warehousing and logistics conditions of the Comprehensive Bonded Zone. By leveraging the synergy between bonded and overseas warehouses, they ship tens of thousands of orders overseas daily, ensuring swift delivery to consumers.

Cross-border e-commerce has emerged as a powerful engine driving high-quality development in foreign trade. The comprehensive free trade zone firmly shoulders the core role of the national cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone, continuously enhancing the "cross-border e-commerce in bonded zones" brand. Building upon the foundation of the cross-border e-commerce "1+3+1" industry development system, it employs chain-thinking to establish three major service platforms: the exhibition and sales center, the comprehensive operation center, and the cross-border e-commerce industrial park. This strategy of "stringing beads into a chain" empowers and strengthens the aggregation projects of cross-border e-commerce at scale.

"Leveraging the functional policy advantages of the Comprehensive Bonded Zone, the capital turnover rate of enterprises has significantly improved. In the first half of this year, the company's foreign trade import volume exceeded 160 million yuan, an increase of 87.9% year-on-year," said Wang Han, General Manager of e-jetzone (Weifang) Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. The rapid development of cross-border e-commerce is inseparable from a series of reform measures aimed at expanding openness and promoting trade facilitation. This year, Weifang saw the implementation of its first cross-border e-commerce retail import tax electronic payment and cross-border e-commerce electronic guarantee in the Comprehensive Bonded Zone, delivering substantial benefits to enterprises in terms of cost reduction and efficiency enhancement.

The open industrial cluster is crucial for maintaining the foreign trade advantages of the Comprehensive Bonded Zone, particularly in sectors like virtual reality, new energy power, and new materials, which serve as pivotal forces driving imports and exports.

At Prestolite Electric (Wei Fang) Co., Ltd., the production workshop echoes with the roar of machinery, while display screens flash real-time production data. This company specializes in the research, development, production, and service of commercial vehicle rotating electrical appliances, serving as a core supplier to global giants such as Cummins, Caterpillar, and Volvo. "Since the intelligent transformation of our production lines, each line can now produce one machine per minute. During peak periods, we achieve a monthly production capacity of up to 180,000 starters and engines," stated Zhang Shengpu, Deputy Manager of the Product Testing Laboratory at Prestolite Electric (Wei Fang) Co., Ltd.

To sustain the positive momentum in foreign trade development and drive its transformation and upgrading through new quality productive forces, the Comprehensive Bonded Zone is actively promoting the digital and intelligent transformation of enterprises. This effort aims to help companies reduce costs, enhance efficiency, and expand production capacity, thereby accelerating the global expansion of more "bonded-made" products and firmly consolidating the foundational strength of foreign trade.

"Thanks to strong support from relevant departments of the Comprehensive Bonded Zone, our company is actively pursuing digital and intelligent transformations, establishing a smart factory for virtual reality products, and launching a new production line for virtual reality products." According to the General Manager of GoerTek Electronics Co., Ltd, currently, the company's VR products account for 80% of the global mid-to-high-end market share. With key technology research and industrialization projects completed for high-end virtual reality products, its production capacity is poised for continuous growth.

The Comprehensive Bonded Zone is advancing comprehensive reforms under the "One Foreign Trade Matter" initiative, aiming to provide integrated services that meet the needs of foreign trade enterprises. It has taken 17 key measures from five dimensions of "strengthening the foundation, improving efficiency, reducing costs, empowering, and fulfilling commitments", to deliver full-cycle, full-chain, and full-element services, thereby enabling diverse business approaches, optimizing processes, minimizing costs, and maximizing value and efficiency.