In the first quarter of this year, Shandong Province saw a steady increase in foreign trade entities, with the number of enterprises involved in imports and exports growing by 5% year on year to 48,000. Notably, the import and export value of private enterprises rose by 12% to 566.51 billion yuan, accounting for 74.1% of the province's total, up 2.9 percentage points. Among the top ten foreign trade enterprises in the province, nine were private ones. Private enterprises which are in the majority and more flexible in Shandong's foreign trade industry showed a higher than the industry's average growth rate and contributed over 70% to the province's total foreign trade value again, playing a positive role in the province's effort to scale up and restructure its foreign trade.

Meanwhile, steady progress was made in market expansion. In the quarter, Shandong's exports to major markets remained stable, with exports to ASEAN, the EU and South Korea up by 34.1%,  2.3% and 15%, respectively and those to the US and Japan down by 11.7% and 8.4%, respectively. The proportion of emerging markets increased. Shandong's exports to countries along the Belt and Road rose by 27.4%, accounting for 35.5% of the province's total export value, up 3.9 percentage points; its exports to RCEP countries grew by 16.8%, accounting for 36.5% of the province's total export value, up 1.2 percentage points. Statistics show that Shandong issued 45,000 RCEP certificates of origin in the quarter, ranking first in China.