CIIE Photo: CFP

 
China Eastern Airline said that it signed an order of king crab worthy $1 billion with Russia's Antry Group on Monday, a move to expand its import channels with more overseas companies.

The deal was announced at the ongoing sixth China International Import Expo (CIIE), the world's biggest import fair held in Shanghai, reflecting China's continuous effort toward opening-up, with the carrier said it has reached more than $2.5 billion in deals at the ongoing event, with other deals, including an order of $500 million salmon with Aquachile from Chile.

China Eastern said its logistics arm's corporation with Aquachile dated back to 2018, and the sales of salmon have maintained a steady improvement. 

Chinese companies are enhancing the diversification of aquatic products, especially after China banned all aquatic products from Japan over the latter's dumping of Fukushima nuclear waste water to the sea on August 24.

Data from the General Administration of Customs (GAC) showed that there were no records of fish and other aquatic invertebrates imported from Japan in September. The import figure stood at 2.085 billion yuan ($286.84 billioin)  during the first eight months of 2023 and remained unchanged till now, indicating that China has frozen all aquatic product imports from Japan since September.

From April of 2023, the logistics arm of China Eastern opened a salmon charter flight from Santiago to Chengdu in Southwest China's Sichuan Province and Zhengzhou in Central China's Henan Province, allowing Chilean salmon to be presented to Chinese consumers in a shorter time.

On November 1, around 350 kilograms of cherries from Chile arrived in Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in South China's Guangdong Province, with the first batch of cherries imported from Chile this year for the airport.

The airport forecast that there will be more than 2,500 tons of cherries to be flown to the airport during November of 2023 and February of 2024. 

The value of China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports exceeded 2 trillion yuan for the first time in 2022, reaching 2.1 trillion yuan and marking an increase of 7.1 percent from 2021, according to a report released Saturday. And, consumer goods constituted 92.8 percent of the exports and 98.3 percent of the imports, according to the report.


Global Times