Yantai, a coastal city in East China's Shandong province, made great achievements in comprehensively deepening reform and opening-up in 2021, according to a news conference held in the city on May 19.

The city saw its cross-border e-commerce imports and exports exceed 15 billion yuan ($2.26 billion) in 2021, which is an increase of 7.3 times compared to the previous year, according to official data.

Yantai's actual use of foreign investment in 2021 hit $2.65 billion, up 16.1 percent year-on-year, and the actual use of foreign capital in the manufacturing sector and investment from RCEP countries ranked first in Shandong last year.

In 2021, the city recorded 411.5 billion yuan in imports and exports, up 27.8 percent year-on-year, with the overall amount placing second in the province. Last year, Yantai's total retail sales of social consumer goods increased 15.4 percent year-on-year to 323.23 billion yuan, outperforming the national and provincial averages.

Industrial zones in Yantai also demonstrated strong vitality last year. A total of 40 innovation centers were set up in the city's industrial zones, which have greatly boosted Yantai's innovative development. Industrial parks account for 5 percent of Yantai's land area, and contributed to 50 percent of the city's GDP.

Yantai released a slew of measures to boost the first-store economy and the development of the e-commerce industry. The county-level city of Qixia in Yantai was approved as a national demonstration county for the development of rural e-commerce, and the online retail sales of Yantai apples ranked first in the country in 2021.

This year, the city's commerce bureau will beef up efforts to accelerate reform and opening-up, and cultivate new strengths for the development of commerce. The bureau also plans to accelerate the construction of a national cross-border e-commerce demonstration zone in the city, in a bid to promote the high-quality development of cross-border e-commerce businesses.