A Yemeni trader selects tea pots while communicating with his Saudi Arabian client via video link at the Yiwu International Trade Market in Yiwu City of east China's Zhejiang Province, Jan. 14, 2021. Facing the onslaught of COVID-19 pandemic, authorities in Yiwu City, dubbed "world supermarket," manage to strick a good balance between coordinated epidemic prevention and control and smooth economic growth.Photo:Xinhua

A delegation of representatives of foreign trade enterprises from East China’s Zhejiang Province on Sunday departed for a six-day trip to France and Germany on a charter flight. In addition to face-to-face communication with overseas customers, the delegation will also attend exhibitions to further explore overseas market, the Global Times learned.
Also on Sunday, a charter flight headed to Japan from Zhejiang’s Jiaxing, with 96 foreign trade businessmen on board, the Global Times learned from local businessmen. 
Such moves are seen by industry insiders as efficient and effective ways to promote overseas commerce, which will largely boost the confidence of businessmen and provide face-to-face communication with overseas customers.
Business representatives on the charter flights told the Global Times that their orders and overseas customers “can be kept and maybe some new customers can be found.” They are excited and looking forward to going abroad again after nearly three years.
They will attend the Asia Fashion Fair 2022 Tokyo, local news site zjnews.com reported.
The charter flight to Japan will then fly to Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates. Exporters on the flight are mainly leading traditional foreign trade enterprises, Zhu Qiucheng, CEO of Ningbo New Oriental Electric Industrial Development, told the Global Times on Monday.
“It is necessary to have face-to-face communication with overseas customers, especially for those doing traditional foreign trade, such as clothing, accessories and machine parts. Not all exports can be done through cross-border e-commerce,” said Zhu.
In a nutshell, non-terminal products, or those that cannot be traded under the form of online business-to-consumer (B2C), can’t really be traded through business-to-business (B2B) cross-border e-commerce.
So far, 26 business charter flights have been completed from and to Zhejiang, to destination countries including India, Pakistan, South Korea, Japan, Hungary and Italy, provincial news portal zhejiangnews.com reported.
“It seems that charter flights will likely continue for another year. The application procedure for the charter flight is very smooth and convenient,” said Zhu.
Jiaxing has confirmed a list of more than 80 groups of overseas exhibitors by the end of 2023, and there will be five groups going abroad in December, zjnews.com reported.
Charter flights bring new opportunities for the development of foreign trade, as exporters should seize every opportunity to expand overseas markets, Bai Ming, deputy director of the international market research institute at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times on Monday.
“In the next stage, as more measures are optimized, charter flights may not be needed, as daily commercial flights can meet individual demand,” said Bai.
Since the start of the pandemic, the Zhejiang enterprises have actively explored measures to develop overseas markets. Business charter flights are only one of those efforts. The provincial government has released several batches of policies to promote foreign trade, covering financing, logistics and taxes.
As a result, Zhejiang’s foreign trade reached 3.9 trillion yuan from January to October, a year-on-year growth of 16 percent, ranking third in China. Exports stood at 2.87 trillion yuan, an increase of 17.7 percent, according to statistics of the Zhejiang customs.