Ningbo Government and MadeInChina.com Joint Efforts to Help Local SMEs Go Global

2008-08-12

By Wenyu Liu

Beijing, China. —June 17, 2008 MadeInChina.com joined Ningbo Government’s efforts to help local SMEs to explore the global market. Sponsored by MadeInChina.com, the foreign trade summit on “Sourcing from China, Winning the World ” kicked off at Ningbo Nanyuan Hotel on June 16^th 2008.  

Industry professionals from 150 foreign trade firms participated in the summit, government officials from Ningbo Information Industry Bureau and Michael Zheng, CEO of MadeInChina.com, as well as other senior experts in the field attended the trade summit.

Located along the west coast of Pacific Ocean, Ningbo is one of the major seaports and economic centers in China. The total import & export value of foreign trade for Ningbo enterprises from January to March 2008 amounted to US$15.048 billion, leading a year-on-year increase of 31.4 per cent, of which, the export value reached US$ 9.903 billion, showing a year-on-year rise of 30.6 per cent; the total import value reached US$ 5.145 billion, with a growth of 33.0 per cent on a year-on-year basis. In March, the import & export value amounted to US$5.282 billion, with an increase of 50.1 per cent, among which, the export value reached US$3.425 billion, leading a growth of 64.8 per cent on a year-on-year basis, for import value, it reached US$1.857 billion with a year-on-year growth of 29 per cent. The City’s foreign trade has kept a high growth momentum in the past few years. As a significant foreign trade player, SMEs’ contribution cannot be undermined.

Since the beginning of this year, China’s foreign trade enterprises have been facing much more stresses: Firstly, as the Chinese government constantly changes the policy on exchange rates due to the appreciation of the RMB, commodity export earnings for mainland foreign trade enterprises have been correspondingly reduced. Secondly, since the second half of 2007, not only has the preferential policy for export rebates on resources and energy- consuming products been cancelled, but export tariffs have been collected. In addition, the export refund rate on some common commodities has been lowered dramatically. As a result of the adjusted tax policies, foreign trade enterprises have suffered a 3.2 per cent fall on average in terms of export profits. Furthermore, the net benefit for foreign trade firms will correspondingly decrease because of the continuity of this factor and its gradually increasing influence. Thirdly, the rising cost of domestic raw materials and energy will cause foreign trade export costs to go up. In 2008, foreign trade enterprises may still face the risk of persistently decreasing profits.

As SMEs were in such a predicament, MadeInChina.com generously offers suggestions to Ningbo-based foreign trade enterprises, with a goal of helping the export-oriented SMEs get out of difficulties.

Established by HC International, MadeInChina.com is one of the leading B2B E-commerce export service providers in China that mainly engages in offering comprehensive promotional service for China’s suppliers. MadeInChina.com has relatively high prestige and recognition from overseas buyers, and is known as one of the most reliable e-commerce websites for global buyers. Over the past years, MadeInChina.com has been offering services to over 5 million Chinese manufacturers covering 64 industries by providing a large variety of on-line and off-line integrated international trade services, such as promotion in global exhibitions, sourcing magazines and internet, as well as other value-added services.

Through B2B E-Commerce online marketing platform, export-oriented SMEs may be able to get more quality trade leads with less cost from big buyers in North Africa, Europe and the Middle East, which greatly expands their business opportunities. 

In addition, trade exhibitions offers foreign trade firms a window to display their products and chances to win orders will be bigger. In 2008 alone, MadeInChina.com will participate more than 200 high-level domestic trade exhibitions, above 20 top-tier international trade exhibitions and over 12 global buyer sourcing meetings. At each trade show, MadeInChina.com actively collects a large amount of trade information and will immediately share these accurate and timely purchasing information with SMEs.  

As the market competition aggravates, plenty of SMEs find themselves left in fore-front of the predicament of development and growth, some even cannot survive. B2B E-commerce platforms assists the growth of SME by breaking the restrictions of time and space, and is warmly embraced by SMEs.  Increment of IT purchasing, popularization of internet applications, as well as examples from successfully enterprises, all boost the B2B E-commerce SME in China. In some developed countries, e-commerce has become an indispensable business tool for a lot of enterprises; while in Zhejiang Province, China, e-business application for most SMEs has become very mature. By offering more business channels for export-oriented SMEs, E-commerce will pave the road to success for the exporting enterprises.  

Source: http://news.163.com/08/0618/16/4EO2562T0001125P.html