Workers at the intelligent workshop of Shandong Tianyuan Garment Co in Ningyang county. [Photo/dzwww.com]

Ningyang county, Tai'an Shandong province has been making efforts to develop open economy and achieved a substantial increase in foreign trade in recent years, local media reported.

The county's imports and exports in the first half of this year totaled 990 million yuan, year-on-year increase of 90.2 percent, ranking first in Tai'an in terms of the volume and the growth rate.

The growth is largely due to efforts by the city's commercial bureau, which has taken measures to optimize the foreign trade environment, improve enterprise services and cultivate a number of leading enterprises.

Ningyang has cultivated a branch of export-oriented clusters featuring its leading industries covering textile and clothing, chemical, agricultural byproducts processing.

The Shandong Tianyuan Garment Co in the county has become an important strategic partner of Japanese apparel brand Uniqlo.

The company has developed a new type of disposable over clothes during the novel coronavirus which gained 450 million yuan ($64.75 million) order of the Japanese Fomdas Holding Group.

The epidemic prevention products produced by Ningyang county, which met the overseas demand, have been exported to Japan, Panama, Australia, and Poland.

Relying on its booming clothing industry, Ningyang has built a cross-border e-commerce industrial cluster area covering an area of 5,000 mu (333.33 hectares), which will greatly improve promote county's cross-border e-commerce industry development.

At present, the area gathers more than 50 textile and garment enterprises, three cross-border e-commerce foreign trade comprehensive service platforms, and six foreign trade comprehensive service enterprises.

The county's government also focuses on attracting investment from key enterprises and has cooperated with foreign-funded enterprises and China's top 500 companies.

In the first half of this year, Ningyang county signed a total of six foreign-funded projects, with a total investment of $469 million.

The county's products have been exported to more than 110 countries and regions around the world, and the import and export volume with countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road increased by 38 percent.

Looking forward, the county will continue to strive to create a better business environment to attract more talent, capital and project to further promote the county's economy in high-quality development.