Shandong’s foreign trade import and export is moving toward -green- products with high energy consumption and high emissions, and the export value has declined.

During a press conference held by the Shandong provincial government on October 17, Shiyong, the Deputy Director of Qingdao Customs, shared some insights into the trade activities in Shandong for the first three quarters of this year. He noted a significant shift towards greener exports, with the value of high-energy-consumption and high-emission products declining by 1% compared to last year. In contrast, the export of “new three types” products—identified as a growing segment—increased by 23.1% to reach 8.03 billion yuan (approximately $1.1 billion). Shiyong predicted that the total export value for the year is likely to exceed 10 billion yuan.

Shiyong highlighted the factors driving import demand in Shandong, attributing it to equipment upgrades and the development of high-tech industries. In the first three quarters, imports of semiconductor manufacturing equipment reached 13.66 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 27.4%. General machinery equipment imports also saw a rise, reaching 9.51 billion yuan, up by 21.2%. Furthermore, the growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence sectors has spurred the import of relevant products, with the import value of automatic data processing devices and their components increasing by 14.6%, including a staggering 12-fold rise in central processing unit parts and a 66.2% increase in storage components.

In terms of major commodity imports, Shiyong reported a nuanced balance in Shandong’s oil and metal ore imports. While the import value of crude oil and refined oil experienced a decline, metal ore imports saw both volume and price increases. Specifically, iron ore imports grew slightly, while copper, aluminum, and nickel ore imports all achieved double-digit growth.

Shiyong noted that in the import structure for Shandong, a substantial 73.4% of rubber, 55.3% of crude oil, 34.7% of refined oil, and 26.7% of coal came from ASEAN countries. Jiang Ming, Deputy Director of Jinan Customs, added that the import of distinctive agricultural products from ASEAN is also on the rise, with coffee, sugar, and nuts imported from the region doubling in growth over the first three quarters. On the flip side, exports to ASEAN have seen a remarkable 39% increase for “new three types” products, with electric vehicle exports growing nearly four-fold.

Electromechanical products continue to be the top export items from Shandong, amounting to 711.7 billion yuan, which constitutes 46.8% of the total export value. Jiang noted that high-end manufacturing sectors are demonstrating strong international competitiveness, as there has been an uptick in both the quantity and price of capital- and technology-intensive products such as automobiles, ships, separation equipment, and central processing components. Collectively, these four categories contributed 2.2 percentage points to the growth of Shandong’s exports.

Overall, the province saw stable growth in trade during the first three quarters, achieving a total import and export value of 2.48 trillion yuan, which marks a 3% increase year-on-year. Exports reached 1.52 trillion yuan, up 6.4%, while imports totaled 963.06 billion yuan, a slight decline of 1.9%.