The busy Qingdao Port in Shandong province. [Photo/Guanhai News]

Qingdao Customs statistics show that in the first eight months of this year the import and export volume of Qingdao reached 598.52 billion yuan ($84.34 billion). This was an increase of 2.5 percent year-on-year and accounted for 27.2 percent of the total import and export value of Shandong province during the same period.

Among them, exports amounted to 342.85 billion yuan, a 7.6 percent increase, while imports totaled 255.67 billion yuan, a 3.7 percent decrease. Out of the 15 sub-provincial cities in China, Qingdao ranked fifth in terms of import and export value after Shenzhen, Ningbo, Guangzhou, and Xiamen.

At 391.77 billion yuan during the January to August period, general trade increased 3.7 percent this year and accounted for 65.5 percent of the total foreign trade value of Qingdao, an increase of 0.8 percentage points from the same period last year.

Foreign-funded and State-owned enterprises showed good momentum. The import and export volume of foreign-invested enterprises reached 114.69 billion yuan, a 6.4 percent increase, while that of State-owned enterprises reached 70.79 billion yuan, a 14.2 percent increase. Imports and exports by private enterprises amounted to 412.8 billion yuan, a 0.4 percent decrease, accounting for 69 percent of the city's total foreign trade volume.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the European Union, the United States, South Korea, and Japan were the top five trading partners of Qingdao, while its import and export volume with countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative decreased 1 percent to 301.84 billion yuan from January to August, accounting for 50.4 percent of the city's total.