HOHHOT: With visible excitement, Ulantuya, who comes from Mongolia, went on a shopping spree in a bustling mall in Erenhot, a major city on the China-Mongolia border.
“There is such a variety of products here. I will be taking many things home,” Ulantuya said amid a swarm of Mongolian merchants and customers.
Border cities like Erenhot have seen a boom in business and greater interpersonal exchange since cross-border travel resumed between China and its neighbors on Jan 8, as a result of optimized COVID-19 controls.
Zhang Yuan, who has had a leather goods shop in the mall for 12 years, was delighted to have Mongolian merchants return.
“As I reconnected with old friends, warm greetings were exchanged and our handshakes lingered just a tad longer than usual,” Zhang said. Statistics from the commerce department of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region showed that the Erenhot highway port has recorded a daily average of about 600 passenger trips since Jan 8. The port also handled 1.42 million metric tons of cargo last month, up 98.2 percent year-on-year.
Ceke Port, which is located in the Alxa League in Inner Mongolia, is an important cross-border channel for mineral products. At a worksite in Ceke, Mongolian containers brimming with coal were hoisted onto waiting trucks before being shipped to various corners of China.
–The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
