The total import and export value of Yiwu in the first half of the year increased by 19.9% year-on-year (chart)

The picture shows customs officers inspecting "inspection before shipment" goods in the consolidation warehouse. Photo by Zhou Yuliang

According to statistics from Yiwu Customs, the total import and export value of Yiwu in the first half of this year was 486.42 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.9%. Among them, exports exceeded 400 billion yuan for the first time in the same period of history, an increase of 17.3%.

In terms of exports, Yiwu, as the world's capital of small commodities, has been well received by small and micro enterprises for its "small batch, multi category, and multi batch" export characteristics. In order to match the characteristic of Yiwu's goods being mostly exported by "LCL", Yiwu Customs has innovatively proposed the "inspection before shipment" supervision mode, which puts the inspection process before packing, realizing parallel operation of inspection and packing, effectively solving problems such as "difficulty in unpacking and packing, difficulty in finding goods through inspection, and difficulty in restocking after dropping goods". The new regulatory model has increased export efficiency by 30%. In the first half of this year, Yiwu Customs supervised the "inspection before shipment" of goods worth 2.78 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.5 times.

In terms of imports, Yiwu's trend of "buying globally" is more evident. Benefiting from the dividends of the non-zero tariff policy, Yiwu imported 8.53 billion yuan from Africa in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 1.3 times. Zhejiang Qiujian Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd., which is engaged in the nut industry, plans to import around 1000 tons of Bigen fruit from South Africa this year, with a 7% import tax rate directly reduced to zero. Originally, there was a slight increase in overall commodity prices this year, but after the implementation of the zero tariff policy, it can help us stabilize our overall costs, which is a real benefit for the company. We are full of confidence in the future, "said Yu Xiaosi, the head of the company's foreign trade.

According to customs statistics, Yiwu had import and export trade with 230 countries and regions in the first half of this year. Among them, imports and exports to Africa, ASEAN, and the European Union amounted to 102.64 billion yuan, 78.21 billion yuan, and 45.81 billion yuan, respectively, with year-on-year growth of 42.7%, 63.5%, and 13.7%. (Gong Mengying, Tang Yanxia/Text)