At the 2021 Land-sea Linkage Qingdao Summit held on October 22nd, International 
Shipping Hubs Competitiveness Index -- Northeast Asia Report (2021), Xinhua-SPG 
Port Commodity Index (XH-SPG PCI) and Trade Connectivity Index Report of RCEP 
Member States (2021) were published. Experts believe that through accurate 
depiction of the changes of port bulk commodity trade in the form of indexes 
and establishment of the efficient linkage among ports, bulk commodity and 
trade, the competitiveness of ports will be enhanced, trade transformation and 
upgrading will be expedited, and the ability to stabilize the price and supply 
of bulk commodities will be strengthened, so as to provide a "bellwether" for 
the development of the industry. 

The "International Shipping Hubs Competitiveness Index", established by China 
Economic Information Service with support of the Baltic Exchange, is another 
world-class port and shipping evaluation index launched globally, on the basis 
of the "Xinhua-Baltic International Shipping Center Development Index". The 
first phase of the index focused on Northeast Asia, and 17 ports in China, 
Japan, South Korea and Russia were selected as the sample ports. According to 
the comprehensive scores, the sample ports were grouped into four echelons, of 
which Qingdao Port, Busan Port and Tianjin Port were in the first echelon, due 
to their leading network connectivity, operation level and basic scale. The 
three ports are absolute regional international shipping centers in Northeast 
Asia. 

XH-SPG PCI was developed and established by Shandong Port Group Co., Ltd. in 
collaboration with China Economic Information Service. It is an important move 
for the Port to probe into the possibility of taking the index as the starting 
point to enhance the ability of global resource allocation. To establish the 
index, three varieties (iron ore, coke and crude oil) with large throughput 
scale and high market attention in Shandong Port, as well as two steel trading 
varieties (steel billet and hot-rolled coil) with active trading at the bulk 
commodity trading center were selected based on the advantageous varieties at 
Shandong Port. The purpose is to truly reflect the fluctuation trend of port 
bulk commodity market, and provide a value benchmark and effective reference 
for port trade activities. According to the planning, the varieties involved in 
the index will be gradually enriched in the future, and the index will also be 
extended to cover other coastal ports. With constant efforts made to build an 
index information platform of "seeing Shandong for port bulk commodities", it 
will provide accurate positioning and comprehensive data reference for the bulk 
commodity market. 

In the Trade Connectivity Index Report of RCEP Member States (2021), a number 
of bilateral trade network relations were established in terms of trade 
exchanges, capital flows and key commodities to show the overall trade status 
and future evolution among RCEP member states, and reflect the development 
level of trade interoperability of RCEP member states. In 2020, the indexes of 
China-Japan, China-ASEAN, Japan-ASEAN, China-Australia and China-South Korea 
ranked among the top five, indicating that these countries maintained close 
cooperation in trade exchanges, capital flows and key commodities. The report 
also points out that the major member states of RCEP are highly complementary 
in terms of industrial structure and have a close trade and investment relation 
in import and export, with a promising prospect for future cooperation. 

Source: China Economic Information Service