Linyi Trade City, a regional commodity hub located in east China's Shandong Province, has recently launched an international sourcing center where foreign purchasers can easily find what they need within just one building.
There are currently 324 corporate tenants at the center and each of them is closely linked to more than 10 upstream manufacturers, ensuring great commodity diversity for foreign buyers.
In general, competitive local products such as building materials, machinery, hardware, personal protection gear, home goods and daily necessities are pooled for one-stop bilingual display at the center.
On its opening day on September 28, over 100 foreign purchasers visited the center. Sales staff at stores of a local chemical trading firm even received several groups of foreign buyers.
Compared with its peers, the international sourcing center of Linyi Trade City has set up a specialized foreign trade service team to facilitate offline communication between local and foreign merchants.
The team also helps store merchants cultivate online orders through e-commerce platforms and assists with related procedures including customs declaration, vessel booking, overseas customs clearance and overseas warehouse delivery.
At the center's stores, foreign-language-speaking salesclerks only need to receive foreign buyers, while the rest sales process can be handled by the center's foreign trade service team.
As a regional commodity hub home to clustered professional wholesale markets, Linyi Trade City is confident that it can help in-zone merchants sell over six million types of local goods to the world.
Compared to spending six to seven days bustling around wholesale markets in Linyi Trade City in the past, foreign buyers can now buy all the commodities they are interested in within the building of the center.
On its top floor, there are veteran goods consolidators that own export channels. It is thus convenient for them to search for goods for foreign buyers or for foreign importers to select goods there.
The center also features a cross-border e-commerce industrial park and an international logistics park. Thanks to these facilities, cross-border transport costs for related goods drop by about 20 percent, crafting a competitive local foreign trade ecosystem covering "product selection, exhibition, transaction, logistics and payment".
Supported also by thoughtful services for foreign purchasers including international hotels, halal catering and multilingual support, Linyi Trade Center's international sourcing center welcomes global merchants with professionalism and hospitality. (Edited by Duan Jing with Xinhua Silk Road, duanjing@xinhua.org)
A single purchase
