Yantai Port in eastern China's Shandong Province has witnessed a small peak in the shipment of commercial vehicles in the start of the new year.
Since Jan 1, the automobile ro-ro (roll-on/roll-off) terminal of the port has received at least four ro-ro ships and dispatched over 10,000 commercial vehicles.
"For the current large volume of commercial vehicle loading and unloading operations, we improved the efficiency of vehicle passage based on factors like the number of vessels and berthing time. With the joint efforts of all sides, a new high of 320 vehicles per hour in average operational efficiency has been established," said Gu Feng, deputy director of the production dispatching center at Yantai Port Ro-Ro Logistics Co. Ltd.
In 2024, the shipment volume of commercial vehicles from Yantai Port reached 737,000 units, among which the volume of international transshipment exceeded 330,000 units, up 22 percent year on year, statistics showed.
As a logistics base and a logistics hub for commercial vehicles in Shandong and North China, Yantai Port has already developed a number of ro-ro shipping routes that cover over 30 countries and regions in Europe, America, Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
East China port sees swelling auto exports in new year
China's commitment to its path of opening up will continue as a long-term national strategy and should increasingly be defined by inclusiveness, a national political advisor said Friday.
Zhou Hanmin, a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the 14th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and president of the Shanghai Public Diplomacy Association, made the remarks in an interview with China Media Group (CMG) during the annual political "two sessions" underway in Beijing.
"Opening-up is and has been a long-term national policy and a strategy ever since China opened itself up (to the world) some 48 years ago. Ever since China joined WTO (World Trade Organization), you could see it has fundamentally changed the formats of economic movements. So opening-up is a reference and also a driving force," he said.
Zhou stressed China must also invite less privileged nations to share in the prosperity of a more open world.
"Inclusiveness is one word that should be used to modify China's opening-up. I (previously) submitted a bill in CPPCC for the zero tariff for those least developed nations' exportation to China. Because for each and every China International Import Expo, you can see quite a large number of exhibitors coming from the least developed countries. We need to give them very genuine help. We are just in the situation of that. We just try to do not only with developed nations, but the Global South and rest of the countries, all together," he said.
Zhou's comments come amid the ongoing "two sessions", the annual meetings of China's top legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), and the top political advisory body, the National Committee of the CPPCC. Both bodies serve a five-year term and hold a plenary session each year, generally in March.
The fourth session of the 14th NPC and the fourth session of the 14th National Committee of the CPPCC kicked off in Beijing on Thursday and Wednesday, respectively. A main focus is the adoption of the country's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030), a key blueprint guiding China's drive toward modernization. When asked about key signals from the plan that the international community should closely watch, Zhou outlined several key issues.
"We are now carrying on this Five-Year Plan in the most crucial period of time. We are going to generally modernize the country (in) another 10 years. In this five-year period of time, we need to focus more on creation. Creation not necessarily in the field of technology. Creation means the modernization of the governance, create lots of new things in the system and methods of governance. This is also important," Zhou said.
"The modernization of industrial systems, the further expansion of the ability of consumption, and we try to know very well the longevity, whatever solves people's daily needs. The last but not least, we try to understand fully international collaboration. Opening-up is still a driving force," he said.
China's opening-up should continue path of inclusiveness: political advisor
China's opening-up should continue path of inclusiveness: political advisor
