Guangxi Pilot Free Trade Zone has been forging ahead for seven years and writing a high-level open answer sheet

The comprehensive service hall in the Nanning area efficiently handles foreign-related approvals, cross-border commerce, and other matters; The giant ship docks at Qinzhou Port, and the container cranes take off and land in an orderly manner; The continuous flow of freight vehicles at the Friendship Pass Port and the fast clearance in 15 seconds... Since the establishment of the China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone seven years ago, this reform test field has been thriving, with continuous achievements in institutional innovation, sustained growth in foreign trade and investment, and increasingly improved land and sea logistics networks. The cooperation between Guangxi and ASEAN countries has gradually deepened and solidified, and has written a wonderful answer to the high-level opening-up in southern Xinjiang, China.

Institutional Innovation: From "Pilot Exploration" to "Guangxi Plan"

Faced with the practical needs of opening up along the border, Guangxi Pilot Free Trade Zone has placed institutional innovation at the core since its establishment, established and improved a work promotion mechanism for top-level design, high-level promotion, and incentive empowerment, and took the lead in key areas such as finance, trade, and data.

In 2019, the "Support Policy for Promoting High Quality Development of China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone" was released and implemented, proposing 30 support measures from supporting the agglomeration and development of advanced industries, and focusing on attracting headquarters enterprises to settle down. In 2024, in response to the difficulties and low efficiency of cross-border e-commerce returns between China and Vietnam, the Guangxi Pilot Free Trade Zone took the lead in formulating group standards such as the "Cross border Express Logistics Warehouse Entry/Exit/Sorting and Consolidation Management Specification" and applied them in logistics enterprises of both China and Vietnam, improving the delivery efficiency of cross-border express delivery by 50%. In August 2025, the "Negative List of Data Export Management in China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone (2025 Edition)" was officially implemented, clarifying the red line for enterprise data export. In 2026, Guangxi Pilot Free Trade Zone will continue to study and develop three negative lists for data export in the field of artificial intelligence, further expanding the channels for data security and orderly opening up.

At present, all the reform pilot tasks specified in the Overall Plan of China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone have been implemented. A total of 254 autonomous region level institutional innovation achievements have been formed and replicated and promoted throughout the region, of which 5 achievements have been selected as "best practice cases" in the national pilot free trade zone, and 10 innovative measures have been registered and recognized by the General Administration of Customs.

From local single point breakthroughs to system integration innovation, Guangxi Pilot Free Trade Zone continues to release institutional dividends, providing a replicable and promotable "Guangxi Plan" for the construction of national border and coastal pilot free trade zones.

Channel Hub: From "Single Port" to "Multimodal Transport Network"

Seven years ago, the construction of the Western Land Sea New Corridor had just begun, and the intermodal train routes for the Beibu Gulf Port Sea Railway were limited, with logistics operations relying more on single point operations. After seven years of development, dispersed port nodes have achieved interconnectivity, and the logistics landscape has undergone profound changes.

Nowadays, the rail sea intermodal trains of the Western Land Sea New Corridor have expanded from the initial few lines to cover 593 ports in 128 countries and regions worldwide, covering 18 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in China. 15 main lines have achieved daily operation in key cities. Through the reform of the "full lifecycle" management service of container cross-border logistics, the "integrated" intelligent monitoring and "instant clearance" of sea rail intermodal ports and stations have been achieved, and the bottleneck of container cross link circulation has been cleared. At the same time, Guangxi Pilot Free Trade Zone has pioneered a new cross-border logistics model between China and Vietnam, known as "one shipment to the end", which enables "one-time consignment, one-stop payment, and one shipment to the end" of exported goods to Vietnam, comprehensively improving the efficiency of land port clearance.

At the Friendship Pass Port, trucks shuttle in an orderly manner, and cross-border freight trains keep coming and going. The daily average number of inbound and outbound vehicles at the Friendship Pass port has increased from 980 to 2000. In the first half of this year, the Pingxiang Railway Port has accumulated 2276 TEUs of imported fruits, a year-on-year increase of 50.8%. In March, China Railway Nanning Bureau opened the "Pingxiang Nanning" fruit cold chain train, and ASEAN fruits can arrive in Nanning in as fast as 4 hours after entering through the Pingxiang railway port. The changes brought about by channel construction not only improve the efficiency of goods circulation, but also promote the transformation of logistics advantages into industrial development advantages.

The sea breeze blows through the Qinzhou Port terminal, containers are neatly stacked, ocean going cargo ships honk their horns and dock, and sea rail intermodal trains continue to depart from the port area, creating a busy scene. In 2019, the container throughput of Qinzhou Port was less than 3 million TEUs; By 2025, it has risen to 7.462 million TEUs, ranking among the top 30 global container ports. With the continuous opening of foreign trade routes, tropical fruits and bulk raw materials from ASEAN have landed in the domestic market here, and domestic new energy vehicles and electromechanical products are exported to various parts of the world through this route.

With the coordinated operation of multiple transportation modes such as sea, railway, and highway, a "multimodal transport network" that connects the western hinterland and radiates the global market is gradually taking shape. The Pinglu Canal, as the backbone project of the Western Land Sea New Corridor, will be opened for navigation on September 16th. This is the first national level coordinated construction of the Tongjiang Dahai Canal since the founding of the People's Republic of China, with a total length of 134.2 kilometers and the ability to accommodate ships of 5000 tons. Goods from the southwest region can travel 560 kilometers shorter inland waterway than traditional routes through the canal, injecting new impetus into high-level open cooperation.

ASEAN Cooperation: From "Economic and Trade Exchange" to "Digital Intelligence Integration"

In the past, cooperation between Guangxi and ASEAN was mainly focused on goods trade. Over the past seven years, the areas of cooperation between the two sides have continued to expand, promoting cooperation from commodity circulation to technology collaboration, data connectivity, financial interoperability, and rule docking, and enriching the connotation of the "Guangxi model" of China ASEAN cooperation.

Rule integration breaks down cross-border barriers. Chongzuo District and Nanning District jointly build a collaborative innovation system of "standards+customs clearance+logistics" for cross-border e-commerce between China and Vietnam, and release three group standards for warehousing, outbound, sorting and consolidation; Promote the development of three cross-border express logistics management standards, reducing the operating cost of a single ticket for enterprises from 5 yuan to 3.5 yuan. Qinzhou Port Area is building a "China Malaysia License Connect Platform" to achieve a digital breakthrough in cross-border mutual recognition of driver's licenses between China and Malaysia, reducing the processing time from two weeks to 10 minutes. From customs clearance standards to industry norms, a batch of cross-border rules formulated by Guangxi have gradually become regional cooperation consensus, making the flow of factors smoother.

Financial interconnectivity empowers bilateral trade. The Chongzuo area has launched the "Reform and Innovation of Cross border RMB Use in Border Areas", which standardizes the cross-border flow of RMB cash and promotes the development of bilateral local currency business by carrying out cash transfer between China and Vietnam, innovating the settlement mode of cross-border trade between border residents. Qinzhou Port Area innovatively implements 5 China Malaysia financial innovation pilot projects, promoting the facilitation of cross-border RMB two-way flow and cross-border RMB interbank financing, injecting financial vitality into bilateral trade and investment.

Data connectivity expands open channels. Taking the pilot of digital trade rules as the driving force, accelerating the construction of data platforms, and ensuring that the open utilization of public data ranks among the top ten in the country. Built the Beibu Gulf Big Data Trading Center and launched over 1800 data products online. Promote the joint construction of the China Malaysia Artificial Intelligence Innovation Center between Guangxi Beitou Xinchuang and Malaysian MYEG Group, and implement pilot projects such as China Malaysia digital identity mutual recognition and China ASEAN digital license cross-border service platform; The country has pioneered the establishment of a negative list management mechanism for data export in four areas: geographic information and meteorological data services, enterprise information services, live cross-border e-commerce, and overseas audio and video production and dissemination. It has served four enterprises to use the negative list to carry out data convenient export business; The Nanning area has established a China ASEAN Trusted Data Zone (beta version), built 12 terrestrial optical cables connecting to ASEAN, significantly reduced data transmission latency, and formed an international data channel for ASEAN.

In the past seven years, Guangxi Pilot Free Trade Zone has made beneficial explorations in cross-border data flow, standards and other fields. The facilitation of investment, trade, logistics and other fields has steadily improved, and the outward oriented economic momentum has grown strongly. It has opened up to ASEAN and formed a new pattern from factor flow to rule integration, from broad entry to deep linkage. Data shows that the actual proportion of foreign investment used in Guangxi Pilot Free Trade Zone has increased from less than 10% in the initial establishment period to 42.88% in July 2026, and the proportion of foreign trade imports and exports has remained stable at over 40%. In the first half of 2026, the foreign trade import and export volume of Guangxi Pilot Free Trade Zone accounted for 42.06% of the total area, a year-on-year increase of 20.25%.

The tide rises in southern Xinjiang and spreads towards the sea. After seven years of hard work, the Guangxi Pilot Free Trade Zone has achieved all-round and multi-level development, and this southern Xinjiang reform test field is firmly moving towards a higher level of opening up to the outside world.