Jining in East China's Shandong province has seen rapid growth in its foreign trade during the first four months this year, which is partly due to Jining customs' continued efforts to improve services.

According to the latest data released by local customs, Jining's foreign trade grew by 32.5 percent year-on-year to 17.9 billion yuan ($2.78 billion) from January to April. Its imports and exports in this period reached 5.79 billion yuan and 12.11 billion yuan, up 7.3 and 49.2 percent respectively year-on-year.

Trade between Jining and its top five largest partners, which are the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the European Union, the United States, Japan, and Korea, has all achieved stable growth.

Jining's foreign trade with signatory countries to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) stood at 6.63 billion yuan in the first four months of the year, up 37.1 percent year-on-year.

From January to April, the exports of mechanical and electrical products from Jining increased by 91.5 percent year-on-year to 4.93 billion yuan, while the city's imports of materials used for papermaking, such as pulp, grew by 7.8 percent year-on-year and accounted for around 60 percent of its total imports.

Since the beginning of 2021, Jining customs has taken a series of measures to help address problems for local foreign trade companies. It has given lectures in many counties on relevant topics, including the RCEP and Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) status. It has also waived more than 85 million yuan in taxes for foreign trade companies in Jining.