Chinese foreign trade enterprises actively explore domestic market, eyeing growth opportunities

Aerial photo shows a ro-ro ship waiting to load China-made cars for export at a berth of Port of Lianyungang in Lianyungang City, east China's Jiangsu Province, Sept. 7, 2020. (Xinhua/Geng Yuhe)

BEIJING, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese foreign trade enterprises have been actively exploring domestic market since the start of this year to seek growth opportunities so as to blunt the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, reported Economic Daily on Monday.

Data showed that the potential of foreign trade enterprises' domestic sales of commodities originally produced for export have been unleashed. For example, the domestic sales value of goods in processing trade of Guangzhou city in south China's Guangdong province surged 30.74 percent year on year in the third quarter over the figure of the first quarter, while that of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region reached 1.42 billion yuan in the first seven months, up 24.2 percent year on year.

To help foreign trade enterprises smooth sales channels, local governments have released a series of policies.

East China's Zhejiang province took actions to introduce export products in local communities, shopping malls and platforms. 

Guangdong set up an online platform for selling goods originally produced for export and encouraged foreign trade companies to expand sales channels, while Fujian and Ningxia jointly held an exhibition to help export enterprises promote sales of export commodities in the domestic market.

Major e-commerce platforms such as Alibaba and Suning.com have also made their contributions by setting up special areas in their online marketplaces for selling export products, in an effort to better match supply and demand.

Experts said that as a market with a population of 1.4 billion people, China has strong demand for consumption. Selling export products at home can help related enterprises not only tide over difficulties resulting from the pandemic, but also optimize business structure and tap into the domestic market. (Edited by Su Dan with Xinhua Silk Road, sudan@xinhua.org)