Visitors tour the eBay booth at the inaugural China (Ningbo) Cross-Border E-commerce Expo which opened in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province on May 18. [Photo/Ningbo Evening News]

The inaugural China (Ningbo) Cross-Border E-commerce Expo opened in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province on May 18, according to local media reports.

More than 600 enterprises in the e-commerce sector including Amazon, eBay and Newegg.com are attending the expo. A total of 300,000 household products from over 200 categories are being displayed at the event.

Lin Wenkui, general manager of sales at eBay Greater China, said that the company is bullish about the cross-border e-commerce development in Ningbo, aiming to help local home furnishing enterprises achieve upgrading through big data so as to provide better experiences for consumers.

In late April, Newegg.com, a US-based online retailer of computer hardware and software, inaugurated an e-commerce operation center in Ningbo, the first of its kind set up by the company in China, by teaming with China-Base Ningbo Group Co Ltd, a leading foreign trade company in Ningbo.

Chen Bo, marketing director of Newegg Global Selling (China region), pointed out that Ningbo has a good foundation for foreign trade and expressed hope that the center's operation would help more Chinese brands tap into overseas markets.

Xie Shangwei, secretary general of the Ningbo Cross-border E-commerce Association, said efforts will be made to construct Ningbo into a global cross-border e-commerce hub for household products.

Cross-border e-commerce has become a key engine fueling foreign trade growth in Ningbo.

As of the end of 2020, more than 60 businesses from the city had built more than 200 overseas warehouses spanning more than 2 million square meters in 20 countries and regions worldwide.

The number of warehouses and their total area accounted for about 11.1 percent and 16.7 percent of the country's total respectively.

Official statistics show that the cross-border e-commerce trade volume of Ningbo amounted to 476.9 billion yuan ($73.37 billion) from 2016 to 2020, with an average annual compound growth rate of 53.2 percent.

A head official from the Ningbo municipal bureau of commerce said holding such an expo is part of local authorities' efforts to help foreign trade businesses seize more orders, and that more efforts will be made to improve the expo's profile in East China.