On the afternoon of August 19th, the semi-annual chairman meeting of Ningbo Enterprise Association for Foreign Economic Relations & Trade and exchange meeting were successfully held in Sellers Union Group.

Liu Jianping, President of Ningbo Enterprise Association for Foreign Economic Relations & Trade, Wang Haisheng, Executive Vice President, Xu Pingju, President of Sellers Union Group, Jiang Leman, a third-level researcher of the Trade Management Office of Ningbo Municipal Bureau of Commerce, the representatives of vice-chairman units including Ningbo Future Import and Export, Ningbo Cixi Import and Export Holdings, Beifa Group, Ningbo United Group, Safewell Group, Nindia Import and Export, Ningbo Mascube Group, Ningbo Junan Holdings, Shenzhou International Group, Market Union Group, Ningshing Holdings, Loctek, Veken Holdings, China Export & Credit Insurance Cooperation and China-Base Ningbo Foreign Trade. The representatives of supervisory units including Ocean Textiles, Ningbo Singfor Garments & Accessories attended the meeting. The meeting was presided over by Liu Jianping, President of Ningbo Enterprise Association for Foreign Economic Relations & Trade.

Xu Pingju, President of Sellers Union Group, invited the delegates to visit the corporate culture exhibition hall and made a special speech during the meeting. Mr. Xu said that after 25-year development, Sellers Union Group has become an import and export group company with export of daily consumer goods as main business, cross-border e-commerce as main track, focusing on the comprehensive layout of foreign trade ecosystem including the export of professional series products, the import of high-end consumer goods, international logistics, exhibition tourism, digital marketing, brand operations and digital ecological parks. In recent years, the Group has continuously explored in the fields of business partnership platform, subsidiary model, business division mechanism, relying on incentive mechanisms such as group decision-making, bottom-up innovation and internal competition and cooperation, to promote the Group’s sustainable high-quality development. Mr. Xu pointed out that affected by the Russian-Ukrainian war and other external factors this year, the foreign trade B2B business was flat compared with the same period last year, the cross-border e-commerce B2C business increased by 30%, the foreign trade ecosystem increased by 15%, and the annual increase is expected to be around 10%. In the third and fourth quarters of the second half of the year, the business will be under pressure, but the rebounding Russian market, the turnaround of regional markets such as Oceania and the Middle East, and US dollar exchange rate will all contribute to the profitability of the whole year. Mr. Xu said that the Group would focus on grasping the strategy of major customers, empowering network marketing and brand operations with digitalization, promoting the domestic market layout with the help of the dual-cycle development of domestic and foreign trade, accelerating product research and development of online and offline integration. The Group will always take both culture and business into account, grasp the future deeply, and resist external uncertainties with internal certainties.

The delegates had an in-depth exchange of views on the business situation and countermeasures of enterprises this year. Entrepreneurs expressed that the decrease orders from European and American countries were influenced by the international geopolitical situation and global inflation this year. The rising raw material price, the spillover of domestic supply chain and industrial chain and other factors resulted in the overall performance lower than expectation in the first half of the year. It is estimated that the second half of the year is still not optimistic. The critical solution is to dig deep into the core business, pay attention to the key element – talents, enable product innovation and channel expansion through digitalization. The enterprises should make great efforts to stabilize foreign trade, guarantee orders and expand the market. At the same time, China Export & Credit Insurance Cooperation will also strengthen support for foreign trade enterprises. Entrepreneurs emphasized that Ningbo is a fertile ground for the development of foreign trade enterprises, which is reflected in the advantages of ports, industry advantages, government support and business environment.

Liu Jianping, President of Ningbo Enterprise Association for Foreign Economic Relations & Trade, expressed his gratitude to Sellers Union Group for providing the opportunity for communicating and learning between enterprises. The mature governance structure, successful business model and distinctive corporate culture of Sellers Union Group are worth-learning for all the enterprises. Ningbo's foreign trade is resilient and has great development potential. In the current complex and dynamic market environment, entrepreneurs should love this industry, and always have firm confidence, which will be the key to the company's expansion. They are also the guarantees to promote high-quality development of foreign trade industry.