Container ships dock at Qingdao Port, Shandong province. [Photo/IC]

East China's Shandong province has taken a series of measures to stabilize its foreign trade and optimize its structure, said officials from the Shandong Provincial Department of Commerce.

Around Spring Festival this year, the province organized 166 enterprises to carry out overseas business negotiations in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, the European Union, and other markets, which generated $1.6 billion in signed contracts and intended orders.

Shandong is also working to create more opportunities, including resuming offline exhibitions. In the first quarter of this year, 251 local enterprises were organized to participate in three exhibitions hosted by Shandong in Japan and Singapore, including the Shandong Agricultural Products Tokyo Exhibition, the Shandong Export Commodities Osaka Exhibition, as well as the Shandong Mechanical and Electrical Products Singapore Exhibition, with the intended transaction amount reaching 500 million yuan ($72.48 million).

Foreign trade enterprises in Shandong speed up production to meet the international market demands. [Photo/IC]

In the first three months of this year, Shandong's actual use of foreign capital reached 39.21 billion yuan, up 4.99 percent year-on-year.

The actual use of foreign investment in the manufacturing industry reached $2.01 billion, accounting for 35.9 percent of the total, while foreign investment actually utilized in high-tech industries reached $1.7 billion, up 100.9 percent and accounting for 30.3 percent of the total.

Shandong saw its foreign trade surge 7.7 percent year-on-year to 764.62 billion yuan in the first quarter of this year, data from the local customs department showed.

The province's imports posted a slightly increase of 1.4 percent year-on-year to 305.34 billion yuan, while its exports climbed to 459.29 billion yuan, up 12.3 percent over the same period last year.

The trade structure continued to improve in Shandong, with general trade imports and exports increasing by 5.3 percent, accounting for 65.5 percent of the province's total.

The export of mechanical and electrical products increased by 26.7 percent, accounting for 47.3 percent of the province's total.