In June 2021, 23 TEUs of milk the Gdansk Port in Poland successively arrived at the Zhoushan Ningbo Port. After a rapid customs clearance, they were sent out all over China.

The milk, produced by a top Polish diary brand Mlekpol, began its “China tour” back in 2019. In the past three years, more and more Polish milk products have crossed the Eurasian continent and entered China through port cities like Ningbo.

“From three TEUs to 10,000 TEUs, the explosive growth is as if the Polish milk and the Chinese market have engaged in ‘transnational love’,” quipped Wang Wenjia, general manager of Zhejiang Defei Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd., and he is playing the role of the “matchmaker”.

Since 2018, Ningbo has been leveraging the Belt and Road Initiative, introducing new trade facilitation policies, improving connectivity, and making every effort to deepen reform and opening-up. Wang Wenjia, who was engaged in the duct tape export trade, sensed the new business opportunities and began to turn to importing Polish milk.

In May 2018. Wang stayed for more than a week in the Polish town Grajewo, visiting four local state-run milk companies. After careful comparison, he targeted Mlekpol, one of the oldest milk companies in Poland.

“The milk produced by the company was mainly sold locally and exported Europe and the Americas," Wang recalled that at the beginning of the negotiation. “It had never entered China.” Mlekpol was half skeptical about opening the Chinese market and asked for cash payment.

Trust takes time to build. In March 2019, after much consideration, Wang Wenjia reached a cooperation agreement with Mlekpol and immediately signed the first order: three TEUs of milk. After more than a month, along the Maritime Silk Road, by way of Germany, Egypt, Singapore, they finally arrived in Ningbo Zhoushan Port, and became quite popular because of its good quality.

Ten TEUs, 60 TEUs, 114 TEUs…Wang currently brings more than 600 TEUs of Polish milk into the Chinese market. “Now even if I don’t send money to them, Mlekpol will still ship milk first.” On May 10, 2021, Wang contracted two milk production lines from another Polish milk, Polmlek.

Wang’s foray into the Polish milk market would not have been successful if not for Ningbo’s increasingly convenient trade services and its ever-improving transport connectivity. “First-class foreign trade service environment is the cornerstone for foreign trade enterprises to become bigger and stronger,” said Wang. Ningbo has not only become a hub for commodities of the Belt and Road countries, but also a “golden channel” for them to come into the China market.