Shunde's AC sales sizzle in summer heat

A siren blared, signaling the departure on Tuesday of Dafeng 3028, a barge loaded with over 4,000 air conditioners, from a dock at Beijiao Port in Shunde district of Foshan, Guangdong province.

The air conditioners, bound for Nansha Port located at the mouth of the Pearl River, will be transferred upon arrival to international oceangoing freighters and transported to countries and regions in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, making the summer cool for local consumers, according to a statement released by Guangzhou Customs on Wednesday.

Dafeng 3028 is one of many shuttle ships that now operate between Shunde district, a major electrical appliances production base in Guangdong, and Nansha Port, a logistics and transportation hub in Guangzhou, the Guangdong provincial capital known as the southern gateway of the country, according to the statement.

Most of the barges carry air conditioners, refrigerators and related cooling appliances.

Summer is usually the peak sales period for electrical appliances, and the heat waves seen in many parts of the world this year have further boosted sales and exports of cooling appliances, including air conditioners and refrigerators, it said.

Statistics from Guangzhou Customs show that exports of air conditioners, refrigerators and electric fans from companies under its supervision stood at 19.83 billion yuan ($2.75 billion) in the first seven months, a year-on-year increase of about 5.6 percent.

Located in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Shunde district, home to myriad electrical appliances manufacturers, is known as the "capital of home appliances", and has developed large-scale and well-equipped home appliance industry clusters after years of effort.

The export volume of "cool home appliances" in the Shunde area has significantly increased since April, with at least 700 containers shipped between Beijiao and Nansha ports daily.

Zhao Long, a senior executive of Midea Group, a major home appliances manufacturer in China, said the export order volume has been on the rise in recent months.

"We have continuously strengthened the research and development of new technologies, and combined the preferences of consumers in different countries and regions to launch different types of products and marketing methods, which have been well received by overseas consumers since the beginning of the year," Zhao said.

To further serve the export needs of home appliance enterprises and meet the requirements of the industrial and supply chains, Foshan Customs — under the administration of Guangzhou Customs — has been reforming its Customs clearance modes and improving clearance efficiency since the beginning of the year, said the statement.

"That has ensured flexible allocation of imported bonded materials among local enterprises and effectively solved the problem of material supply shortages caused by increased orders for enterprises," it said.