A foreign trade company from Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang province attends a fair in Shanghai. [Photo/Ningbo Daily]

Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang province recently unveiled a string of measures to boost the integration of domestic and foreign trade.

The city will strive to cultivate several large-scale supply chain platform enterprises and incentivize local companies to strengthen brand building.

A campaign is also set to be launched to ensure that goods that will be sold at home and abroad from Ningbo have the same standards and quality.

Support will be put in place to mobilize local businesses to expand their domestic sales, while encouraging stores and supermarkets to sell foreign trade commodities.

Enterprises will also be encouraged to take part in domestic professional exhibitions.

Other measures included ramping up government procurement, strengthening financial support, and improving services for talents.

In an effort to ensure the smooth implementation of these measures, the local government will allocate a fund of no less than 200 million yuan ($30.77 million) to support foreign trade companies to explore domestic markets.

The measures will take effect from Aug 28 and are valid until the end of 2022. 

Official statistics from the Ningbo municipal tax authorities showed that export tax rebates in Ningbo amounted to 34.806 billion yuan in the first half of this year, a year-on-year increase of 43 percent and a 13-percent increase compared with the same period in 2019.

The time required for local enterprises to apply for tax rebates has been compressed to 4 working days, which has effectively bolstered the development of foreign trade companies by activating capital chains.