JINAN - East China's Shandong province reported its trade with members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) neared 357.4 billion yuan ($53.1 billion) from January to April, an increase of 19.9 percent year-on-year.

The figure accounted for 36.9 percent of the province's total imports and exports.

"More than 100 import enterprises have seen nearly 51 million yuan in tariff concessions during customs clearance at Qingdao Customs in the first four months of the year," said Bi Haijun, an official of the customs of Qingdao, an important coastal city and international port city.

"Since the RCEP agreement took effect, the tariff rate of alloy steel plates we imported has declined from 3 percent to zero, with a total tariff concession of over 300,000 yuan, which has greatly reduced our production and operation costs," said Qu Xiaoqun, business manager of Yantai Tiezhongbao Steel Processing Co Ltd, a marine engineering platform equipment manufacturer which imports alloy steel plates from Japan.

Qu said that the company benefits from the RCEP agreement and other supportive policies, and domestic trade orders of the company are expected to increase dramatically this year and alloy steel imports from Japan will increase by about 70 percent.