In the first 8 months, the import of fruits on the Lancang Mekong International Channel increased by 12.2 times year-on-year

According to data from Xishuangbanna Customs, a subsidiary of Kunming Customs, in the first eight months of 2026, the import and export freight volume of the Lancang Mekong International Waterway was 234300 tons, with a trade volume of 4.362 billion yuan, an increase of 58.9% and 130.8% year-on-year, respectively. Remarkably, 42700 tons of imported fruits and a trade volume of 721 million yuan increased by 12.2 times and 7.9 times respectively year-on-year.

The Guanlei Port in Yunnan is a key hub of the Lancang Mekong International Waterway and an important port for importing fruits from Southeast Asia and exporting fresh fruits domestically. The designated supervision site for imported fruits at Guanlei Port has been in operation for over two years. With the advantage of the "golden waterway" of the Lancang Mekong River and the series of customs clearance facilitation reforms, Southeast Asian tropical fruits have become one of the pillar categories for port imports.

It only takes 26 hours for fruits to be shipped from Qingsheng Port in Thailand to Guanlei Port, which can shorten transportation time by 3 days and reduce logistics costs by about 20% compared to land transportation. In the first 8 months of this year, our company's fruit import volume increased fivefold, "said Li Caiping, the person in charge of Guanlei Port at Xishuangbanna Chaohe International Freight Forwarding Co., Ltd.

Xishuangbanna Customs continues to optimize the customs clearance process around the difficulty of storing fresh goods. Relying on the mechanism of "speeding up customs clearance+cold chain escort+full-time service", it implements convenient measures such as early declaration and two-stage access, and uses technological means such as intelligent checkpoints and remote identification systems to significantly shorten customs clearance time.

We have opened a 'green channel' for fresh goods, implementing 'immediate collection and delivery, immediate inspection, and immediate release' for imported fruits. Enterprises can declare online through a 'single window', and imported goods can be unloaded from ships and transferred to customs supervision workplaces. Non inspection freight vehicles can pass through intelligent checkpoints in as fast as 3 minutes, "said Dong Dongdong, Deputy Director of Xishuangbanna Customs Office in Guanlei.

With the continuous expansion and upgrading of the functions of the Guanlei Port, cross-border fruit trade has achieved a leapfrog development from initial small-scale trials to large-scale and normalized imports, effectively driving the overall increase of foreign trade at the port. The opening dividend of the "golden waterway" of the Lancang Mekong River is accelerating. (Ma Yun, Dong Dongdong/Text)