Employees are hard at work at Nantong E-port Company. [Photo/ntjoy.com]

Nantong E-port Company -- founded in the coastal city in eastern Jiangsu province in 2013 – has made a major impact on the city’s foreign trade, according to local officials.

In recent years, it has combined internet technology with foreign trade to establish an efficient customs declaration system, contributing a great deal to the promotion of local foreign trade, they added.

Over the past six years, the company has served for more than 4,000 businesses and handled a total of 1.17 million import and export deals worth $113 billion.

As a key service platform of the Nantong government, the e-port has greatly improved the work efficiency of the local customs. One example is that the declaration times for import and export goods has been reduced from half a day to five to 10 minutes and the time for inputting data about international ships have been cut by 90 percent. 

Officials said it has also helped other companies save more than 10 million yuan ($1.42 million) in labor and traffic costs.

At present, several management systems developed by Nantong E-port have been used in cities, such as Wuhan in Hubei province and Qiqihar in Heilongjiang province.