On 29 October, Yu Haitian, Deputy Party Secretary and Mayor of Jinan, met with Huang Xiangmo, Chairman of Yuhu Group Hong Kong, and his delegation. The two sides held in-depth discussions on securing the landing of Yuhu Cold Chain’s Jinan project and on the Group’s role in helping the city build a high-quality cold-chain food trading market.

Mayor Yu Haitian extended a warm welcome to Huang Xiangmo and his delegation. He introduced Jinan's recent progress in various fields, noting that Shandong Province, with a permanent and registered population each exceeding 100 million, is a major demographic, economic, and cultural hub. Benefiting from abundant resources and a well-developed transportation network, the province serves as a key economic growth engine in northern China. As the capital of Shandong, Jinan boasts significant geographical advantages and is positioned as an important hub city facing Northeast Asia. Its high-speed rail network connects over 400 million people within a 1.5-hour travel radius. In the recently released Cities’ Comprehensive Development Index Report 2025, Jinan ranked fifth nationwide. Mayor Yu further emphasized that Yuhu Group possesses strong capabilities, and Yuhu Cold Chain’s nationwide investment layout and innovative business model have left a deep impression on him. While Shandong excels in services and agriculture, it faces gaps in cold chain logistics, infrastructure, and trading markets. The implementation of Yuhu Cold Chain’s project will effectively address these gaps and support the qualitative growth and efficiency improvement of related industries. He also affirmed that the Municipal Committee and Government will spare no effort in providing comprehensive services, acting as a dedicated “service steward,” and has directed the Shizhong District and relevant departments to ensure robust support for accelerating the project’s implementation and construction.

Huang Xiangmo first expressed gratitude to the Jinan Municipal Party Committee, Municipal Government, and relevant departments for their recognition and support of Yuhu Cold Chain. He introduced that Yuhu Group, with 25 years of industry experience, has grown into a diversified multinational investment group. Since refocusing its strategic priorities on China in 2020 and launching the Yuhu Cold Chain China strategy, the group now operates and is constructing nine cold chain trading centres covering key provinces across the country. He emphasized that Shandong Province is both a significant agricultural production base and a consumer market. Yuhu Group has always attached great importance to investing in Jinan, and the planned Jinan project aims to establish a comprehensive cold chain food trading hub integrating internationally advanced smart cold storage, distribution, display and trading, processing, and supply chain financial services. This will help improve Jinan’s cold chain infrastructure and service system. By leveraging Yuhu Cold Chain’s integrated online-offline platform, the project will facilitate precise transaction matching through its online trading system and ensure efficient fulfillment via its asset-heavy offline network, thereby reducing costs and increasing efficiency in the distribution of agricultural products in Jinan and Shandong Province. In the future, the project is expected to attract thousands of leading cold chain food enterprises and engage over thousands of upstream and downstream industry chain companies in transactions. Through Yuhu Cold Chain’s full-chain services, a robust industrial ecosystem will be built, fostering a thriving cold chain food trading market in Jinan. Huang Xiangmo underscored that Yuhu Cold Chain remains committed to the principle of “efficient fulfillment and quality service,” ensuring the project starts early, operates early, and delivers results early, thereby contributing to the development of Shandong’s cold chain industry.

The meeting was attended by Xu Ming, Secretary-General of the Jinan Municipal Government; Ju Zhengjiang, Party Secretary of Shizhong District; Niu Changchun, Director of the Municipal Bureau of Natural Resources and Planning; Qi Wei, Director of the Municipal Bureau of Housing and Urban-Rural Development; Zhou Jianguo, Director of the Municipal Bureau of Transport; Zhai Libo, Director of the Municipal Port & Logistics Office; Meng Qingshun, Deputy Party Secretary and District Mayor of Shizhong District; Ma Jun, Party Group Member and Deputy Director of the Municipal Development and Reform Commission; Zha Qingcai, Director of the Jinan Government Office in Shenzhen; and senior executives from Yuhu Group, Guo Limin, President of Yuhu Group; Zhong Huihong, President of Yuhu Cold Chain; Jiang Wensheng, Director of Yuhu Group; and Yang Tao, Senior Vice President of Yuhu Cold Chain.