Workers construct a facility of Sketchers Taicang Trading & Logistics Co in Taicang Port Economic and Technological Development Zone. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Taicang Port in East China's Jiangsu province is home to the distribution facilities of 12 world-famous brands, including Volvo and Sketchers.

These facilities paid 1.29 billion yuan ($200.03 million) in taxes in 2020, which brought Taicang a strong flow of investment, as well as an increase to the container volume of Taicang Port.

Zhong Xiaoming, logistics director of Volvo Car Asia Pacific, said that Taicang Port will be built into a logistics base for the import, collection, and distribution of domestic and foreign automobile parts, which is expected to bring an additional annual cargo throughput of 40,000 twenty-foot equivalent units to Taicang Port.

Sketchers, the US-based athleisure company, will invest up to 1.8 billion yuan to expand its distribution facilities in Taicang in the third quarter of this year.

In December 2020, the company set up a distribution center in Taicang by investing one billion yuan, said Willie Tan, CEO for the company's operations in China, South Korea, and Southeast Asia.

"It's necessary for us to raise investment to build the second phase of our distribution center in Taicang," he said, adding that building advanced distribution and logistics facilities is key to competing with other established rivals like Nike, which is also building similar facilities.

As Taicang has a well-developed container port and customs office, as well as a convenient location to connect many eastern Chinese cities, the Sketchers distribution center will further enhance the company's overall supply chain competencies.

An employee checks manufacturing equipment at a packaging tape facility in Taicang. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The expanded Taicang facility will play a key role alongside the company's other businesses in building a more comprehensive logistics network in China and other markets, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, the company said.

Taicang is creating a good business environment for the city's foreign-funded enterprises despite the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, nearly more than 1,600 foreign-owned enterprises have set up bases in the city.

In 2020, Taicang's registered foreign capital totaled $1.95 billion, while the actual use of foreign capital was $820 million, both of which reached an all-time high.