In recent years, the global economic and trade pattern has been deeply adjusted, and the complexity and uncertainty of the external environment have increased significantly. Liaocheng City has firmly grasped the focus of “helping more companies sell their products and supporting more companies to go global”, systematically promoted foreign trade to stabilize the scale, optimize the structure, and improve quality and efficiency, and handed over a dazzling foreign trade report card.
From January to May 2026, Liaocheng added 617 new companies with import and export performance, bringing the total to 1,597; the city’s total import and export value of goods reached 32.47 billion yuan, a record high for the same period in history, a year-on-year increase of 9%, of which exports were 17.95 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 35.5%, maintaining double-digit growth for five consecutive months.
Exports to Africa and ASEAN increased by 99% and 50.9% respectively year-on-year, and the development of emerging markets has achieved remarkable results.
Behind the outstanding results is Liaocheng’s multi-dimensional support system for stabilizing foreign trade:
First, the international market development has achieved remarkable results.
The local government continues to carry out a special campaign to “help more companies sell their products” and helps companies open up international markets by holding briefings on policies for thousands of companies going overseas, inviting overseas businessmen to discuss inspections and matchmaking, and organizing companies to participate in key domestic and overseas exhibitions.
At the same time, multi-department coordination has been strengthened, and foreign economic and trade policy briefings have been held on a regular basis in conjunction with customs, foreign exchange management, taxation and other departments. More than 10 tours have been carried out in various counties and cities. The “2026 Overseas Market Development Plan” has also been formulated to build a supply and demand docking platform to help enterprises understand the international market, become familiar with supporting policies, and enhance export momentum.
In addition, a three-level linkage service system of cities, counties and townships has been established to coordinate and solve the problems of enterprises in finance, logistics, customs clearance facilitation, foreign exchange settlement and other aspects through foreign trade enterprise symposiums, “learning from the grassroots and serving enterprises” and other activities.
Second, the export momentum of characteristic and advantageous products is strong.
The local government has improved the “Business +” inter-departmental mechanism, strengthened coordination and linkage with the industry and information technology, agriculture and rural areas, housing and construction and other departments, formulated overseas plans by industry and industry, and promoted the export of characteristic and advantageous products.
From January to May, 85 local agricultural products companies achieved exports of 2.54 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.6%, and their products are sold to 107 countries and regions around the world. The diversified layout of industrial products has achieved remarkable results. The exports of advantageous products such as steel plates, chemicals, poultry, and cotton textiles increased by 106%, 78%, 17%, and 12% respectively.
At the same time, the local government also promotes construction and installation companies to “go overseas as a team”, guiding companies to seize opportunities to deeply participate in infrastructure construction in emerging markets such as Central Asia, and drive the export of machinery and equipment and engineering materials.
The third is “district-port linkage” to deeply empower cross-border logistics.
In view of the locational shortcomings of inland cities, Liaocheng City coordinates and promotes the joint development of “Linqing Bonded Logistics Center + Luxi International Dry Port” to open up cross-border logistics congestion points and build efficient and convenient access to the sea.
After the completion of the capacity expansion and upgrade of the Luxi International Dry Port, it relied on the exclusive preferential freight rate policy to significantly reduce the cross-border logistics costs of enterprises and achieve efficient customs clearance of “one declaration, one inspection, one release”. From January to May, the Luxi International Dry Port opened 911 trains, a year-on-year increase of 14.6%, and the container volume was 81,000 TEUs, a year-on-year increase of 14%.
The Linqing Bonded Logistics Center has also been successfully closed and operational, with an import and export of 130 million yuan in the first phase, which not only effectively alleviates the pressure on enterprises to occupy import funds, but also enables instant tax refunds for goods entering the zone, effectively reducing costs and increasing efficiency for enterprises.
Fourth, policy services accurately reach market entities.
The local government is accelerating the formulation of the “Three-Year Action Plan for Liaocheng Enterprises to “Sail Overseas””, building a foreign trade policy “toolbox” covering the entire life cycle of enterprises, and promoting the service model from “enterprises looking for policies” to “policies looking for enterprises.”
Since the beginning of this year, companies have been organized to participate in 62 key domestic and overseas exhibitions. During the 139th Canton Fair, 75 companies in Liaocheng signed 972 intention orders with an amount of 410 million yuan, an increase of 55.9% over the same period last year.
The local government has also implemented a foreign trade and economic specialist system to provide “one-to-one” assistance to zero-foreign trade companies, established a mechanism for large companies to help start-ups, and carried out policy publicity and business training on a regular basis; implemented free insurance and premium subsidy policies for small and micro enterprises, and export credit insurance to pay up to 90% of the purchase price; and simultaneously established a trade friction early warning mechanism to help companies cope with trade barriers; make good use of municipal-level special funds for foreign trade and trade, and launch financial instruments such as “Lumao Loans”, order pledges, and exchange rate hedging to alleviate corporate financing problems.
At the same time, the local area is also vigorously cultivating new foreign trade formats, developing cross-border e-commerce, building an export system of “cross-border e-commerce + overseas display centers + public overseas warehouses”, supporting enterprises to export services such as design and technical consulting, and promoting the transformation of “goods overseas” to “goods + services” coordinated overseas export.
Next, Liaocheng City will continue to implement the special action of “helping more companies sell their products and supporting more companies to go global”, increase services to enterprises, guide companies to open up diversified markets, support construction and installation companies to undertake overseas projects, strengthen the “district-port linkage” open platform, promote the expansion of foreign trade scale, structure optimization, energy level improvement, and empower high-quality economic and social development with high-level openness.
At the same time, it is also recommended that foreign trade companies take the initiative to seize opportunities in emerging markets such as Central Asia, ASEAN, and Africa, insist on equal emphasis on market diversification and business innovation, proactively adapt to new regulations such as international green standards and carbon footprints, promote product upgrades to high added value, realize the leap from “OEM production” to “brand overseas”, and make full use of various support policies to reduce operating costs.
