Xinhua News Agency client: Three breakthroughs and smooth circulation

The Central Plains land has demonstrated its responsibility in promoting the rise of the central region, ecological protection of the Yellow River Basin, and high-quality development with a daring, benevolent, and practical attitude.

In the first three quarters of this year, the gross domestic product of Henan Province increased by 5.6%, which is 0.4 percentage points higher than the national average. Liu Ning, Secretary of the Henan Provincial Party Committee, said, "Since the beginning of this year, Henan has taken integrating into the construction of a unified national market as a strategic measure to promote high-quality development. In the next step, Henan will focus on breaking through bottlenecks, strengthening connectivity, increasing power, and improving energy levels, striving to build a national unified market circulation hub and create a dual circulation pivot for domestic and international markets

Henan has formulated the "Implementation Plan for Integrating Services into the National Unified Market to Strengthen the Domestic Circulation", selecting 10 key issues such as clearing market access barriers and facilitating enterprise migration to carry out key battles. A total of 49 inter provincial channels have been connected, and an air cargo network covering over 30 countries and regions worldwide has been established. In the first three quarters, the ratio of total social logistics expenses to regional GDP in the province was 13.4%, a decrease of 0.5 percentage points from the same period last year, indicating a significant cost reduction and efficiency increase in logistics.

Recently, our reporter visited the inland ports in the eastern Henan region, the Zhengzhou Kuala Lumpur "Air Silk Road" dual hub, and the adjacent areas of the Henan Shaanxi Shanxi provincial border in three directions. From the "water, land, and air" routes, we closely observed the latest progress of Henan's promotion of the construction of a unified national market.

The "cost reduction account" of a single soybean:

Inland ports become gathering places for enterprises

At Zhoukou Port, located in Zhoukou City, Henan Province, on the banks of the Shaying River, the largest tributary of the Huai River, cargo ships loaded with goods set sail with their horns, handling and transporting bulk commodities such as soybeans from Brazil, Budunyan from Indonesia, soda ash from Henan, and white sugar from Guangxi.

This inland port deep in the Central Plains has become a gathering place for domestic and foreign port preference enterprises, including the Fortune Global 500 and international grain and oil processing giant Yihai Kerry.

What is the charm of this port? At the Yihai Kerry (Zhoukou) Modern Food Industry Park near Zhoukou Port, the company's head Han Xia pointed to the "Inland Waterway Shipping Radiation Map" on the office wall and said, "Zhoukou is not near the sea or the border, but after the inland waterway transportation is connected, it connects the Yellow River, Huai River, and Yangtze River basins, standing at the forefront of opening up to the Yangtze River Delta in the central and western regions

As a large-scale grain processing enterprise, having only hub advantages is not enough. Han Xia calculated a "cost reduction account" for reporters:

The company consumes a huge amount of imported soybeans every year. If soybeans are transported to Lianyungang by railway to Zhoukou Railway Station, and then transferred to the enterprise by road, the transportation cost is high and the losses are significant. Now soybeans are loaded onto ships in Lianyungang and transported directly to Zhoukou Port by waterway. The grain suction machine transports the soybeans from the dock cargo ship directly to the enterprise silo through pipelines, without any loss, and saves about 20 yuan in shipping costs per ton. Based on importing over 800000 tons of soybeans per year and half of them being transported by waterway, it can save over 8 million yuan in shipping costs per year.

Considering the prospects of inland waterway transportation, since last year, Yihai Kerry has invested 5 billion yuan to build the Yihai Kerry (Zhoukou) Modern Food Industry Park, covering an area of over 2000 acres, in Zhoukou Port. This is its largest comprehensive agricultural product processing industry cluster in the central region.

Turning the clock back to 2001, Yihai Kerry first came to Zhoukou to build a factory. The factory covers an area of only over 110 acres and shipping has been interrupted for more than 20 years; In 2005, the Zhoukou section of the Shaying River resumed operations, but the scale and efficiency of the passage were relatively low.

In recent years, Henan has continuously improved the waterway level, port collection and dredging capacity, and ship lock navigation efficiency of the Shaying River, and built Zhoukou Port into the "largest inland port north of the Yangtze River". In June of this year, the National Development and Reform Commission announced a list of 30 new national logistics hub constructions, with Zhoukou Port type national logistics hub on the list. At present, Zhoukou Port has opened 24 domestic container shipping routes and 19 international waterway channels, linking with the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River to form a "six provinces and seven ports". In the first half of this year, the container throughput of Zhoukou Port reached 99000 TEUs, a year-on-year increase of 46.8%.

The combination of hub advantages and cost advantages has accelerated the rise of local port industrial clusters. Deng Changfeng, Secretary of the Party Working Committee of Zhoukou Lingang Development Zone, introduced that 16 Lingang industrial projects are accelerating construction this year, and another 27 projects are being tracked and negotiated. At present, local parks for port equipment manufacturing and intelligent robots have been built, and food processing chains are clustered together. Modern port logistics continues to grow.

From the transformation of "inland small ports" into "national hubs", it is not difficult to see Henan's determination: breaking through bottlenecks, strengthening connectivity, filling the gaps in water transportation, creating an efficient and coordinated three-dimensional transportation network of "water rail public air", and actively integrating into the construction of a unified national market with a new posture of connecting rivers and seas.

The head of the Henan Provincial Department of Transport stated that the cost of water transportation is one-third of railway transportation, one seventh of road transportation, and one twentieth of air transportation. However, in the past, water transportation was a shortcoming in Henan's comprehensive transportation system.

In June of this year, the Ministry of Transport and other departments jointly issued the "Opinions on Promoting the High quality Development of Inland Waterway Transportation", which plans to build a modern inland waterway transportation connectivity system that spans east and west, radiates north and south, has two-way land and sea, and is smooth both inside and outside by 2030. A strategic layout around inland waterway transportation has opened up among major economic provinces.

Henan regards accelerating the high-quality development of inland waterway transportation as a key measure to build a modern comprehensive transportation system and develop a modern hub economy. It has formulated a high standard layout plan for inland waterways and ports in the province, formulated the "2+8" port group, accelerated the promotion of inland waterway connectivity projects, accelerated the expansion and upgrading of waterways and ports, strengthened the construction of port and waterway infrastructure, and improved the digitalization, networking, and intelligence level of shipping. Since the beginning of this year, there have been continuous big moves:

——Kaifeng City has taken strong measures to promote the Jialu River resumption project and the preliminary work of Weishi Port. Special personnel and teams have been assigned to carry out the project, strengthen factor guarantees, and accelerate the implementation progress of key infrastructure. It is expected that Weishi Port will start construction by the end of this year, and by 2030, Zhengzhou is expected to have access to the river and sea through this port;

——On November 5th, Pingdingshan Port officially opened for operation. Liu Wenxiang, member of the Standing Committee of Pingdingshan Municipal Party Committee and Deputy Mayor, stated that the official opening of Pingdingshan Port will further extend the Shaying River waterway inland, and the cargo collection scope will radiate to the entire western and northern Henan, as well as western inland provinces such as Shaanxi and Shanxi, building a new pivot for regional economic development;

——As the gateway to opening up to the outside world in southeastern Henan, Gushi County, Xinyang City, relies on the advantages of the Huaihe River waterway to accelerate the expansion and upgrading of waterways and ports, and build a diversified intermodal transportation system of "public transportation and iron transportation" for the southern Henan region, accelerating the formation of a horizontal corridor of the Huaihe River main channel.

The "preservation path" of a durian:

Choose Zhengzhou for the 'Fresh Fruit Route'

At the "Baiguoyuan" fruit shop on Jianxue Street in Jinshui District, Zhengzhou, the reporter met Liu Hong, a citizen who came here to pick up the "Maoshan King" fresh durian. To her surprise, she made a reservation in the shop the day before and just over 20 hours later, the durian from Malaysia was delivered to her hands.

The shop owner introduced that the Malaysian "Cat Mountain King" durian has a short shelf life. In the past, the durian sold in the store was either whole durian frozen with liquid nitrogen or processed fruit puree and flesh. Now through air freight, Zhengzhou consumers can also taste the freshest durian of the season.

From 'frozen' to 'fresh', behind it is the accelerated construction of the Zhengzhou Kuala Lumpur 'Air Silk Road'.

In June 2024, the General Administration of Customs of China announced that it would allow the import of Malaysian fresh durian that meets relevant requirements. In August of that year, Zhengzhou opened a direct freight route to Kuala Lumpur, and the first batch of Malaysian fresh durians entered the Chinese market through Zhengzhou. In durian producing areas such as Lau Wu in Pahang, Malaysia, many orchards have launched "direct airport" services, where durians are immediately packed and shipped to China upon arrival.

In September of this year, on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the opening of the cargo route from Zhengzhou to Kuala Lumpur by Malaysia's Raya Airlines, Chen Xuemei, Chairman of Zhengzhou Chen's Sunshine Fruit and Vegetable Trading Co., Ltd., told reporters that the company's durian imports have increased by about 30% annually. Airshipped Malaysian durian can be distributed to Chinese consumers' tables in just 36 or even 24 hours through Zhengzhou, which is in short supply in China. The company is preparing to further expand its import volume.

Since October this year, Henan Shunshui Import and Export Trading Co., Ltd. has imported about 5 tons of "Maoshanwang" fresh durian from Zhengzhou Airport every day, of which 70% is "empty handed" to Shanghai, Shenzhen and other places.

Fresh durian can be transported nationwide through Zhengzhou, driven by a series of new measures to steadily expand institutional openness, expand and enhance open channels, and strengthen open platforms.

Gu Changbao, General Manager of Henan Airlines Cargo Development Co., Ltd., told reporters that taking durian as an example, the market demand is small batches, multiple varieties, and personalized. "Air to air transit" requires cross-border, cross airline, and cross waybill operations, involving multiple entities such as customs, airports, airlines, and freight forwarding companies.

In recent years, Henan has launched a series of reforms to connect the "Ren Du" two veins of open development:

——Infrastructure construction. Promote the construction of the "Air Silk Road" between Zhengzhou and Kuala Lumpur, establish a 600 square meter dedicated transit operation area at Zhengzhou Airport, and establish cooperative relationships with more than 30 domestic airports;

——Rules and standards open the way. Build a cargo transfer system, achieve "zero delay" passage of "goods without movement and data movement" through information sharing and automatic comparison, and compress the overall clearance time to less than 6 hours.

Wang Yongjin, Deputy Director of the Customs Express Supervision Department at Zhengzhou Airport, told reporters that on the basis of 7 × 24-hour customs clearance guarantee, cross-border e-commerce goods exported can be directly transferred to the apron for direct loading after completing customs supervision procedures at the Zhengzhou Airport International Express Center, reducing the transit time of goods by 8 to 12 hours.

According to data from Zhongyu Aviation Group, as of the end of October this year, Zhengzhou Airport imported over 16500 tons of fresh goods such as durian, salmon, and king crab, a year-on-year increase of 190%, and the number of imported fresh varieties increased to 32. The import and export volume of cross-border e-commerce reached 209000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 104.1%.

The aviation hub level has risen, and it has also attracted the landing of high value-added industries in the air. Relying on its aviation advantages, Zhengzhou is accelerating the layout of aviation preferred industrial clusters such as intelligent terminals, precision machinery, and biomedicine. The electronic information industry represented by Foxconn, Super Fusion, and Loongson has achieved an annual output value of over 500 billion yuan in the past three years. Zhengzhou Airport Area has become an important global intelligent terminal production base, with the regional GDP exceeding 120 billion yuan for the first time in the first three quarters of this year, a year-on-year increase of 11.1%.

Over the past decade, Zhengzhou Air Cargo has gone from an undeveloped intercontinental cargo route network to an air cargo network covering over 30 countries and regions worldwide, with Zhengzhou as the Asia Pacific hub and Luxembourg as the European and American hub. The freight volume in 2025 will exceed last year's total by 58 days ahead of schedule.

'Three No's' Becomes the' Golden Triangle '

Yuling Town in Lingbao City, Sanmenxia, is located at the westernmost point of Henan Province, adjacent to Tongguan in Shaanxi Province and Ruicheng in Shanxi Province. It was once jokingly referred to as the "three no's" border area. In recent years, the local area has actively integrated into the construction of a unified national market, becoming an industrial hub for regional cooperation and earning the new title of "Golden Triangle".

The reporter departed from Zhengzhou and drove westward, with the smooth highway winding forward. After driving for over 4 hours and passing through dozens of tunnels, the reporter arrived in Yuling Town. This road extends all the way to Tongguan. Even though the two places are adjacent, this road was not as wide as it is now, "said Bao Ruina, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Yuling Town.

Standing at the provincial border, Bao Ruina said that in the past, there was only one small road connecting the two places, with the narrowest point being less than 4 meters, which often caused traffic congestion. The two places are geographically close and have a close relationship with each other. The provincial border separates the two places, and once they cross the border to work or do business, stamping a seal can "break their legs".

In order to break through the "invisible wall" of administrative divisions, Lingbao City has started with "one official seal" and joined forces with multiple county-level government service agencies to carry out inter provincial communication. At the Lingbao City Government Service Center, the reporter saw a thick stack of cross provincial communication agreements stamped with 69 government seals. This agreement covers 69 counties and districts in 12 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government across the country, enabling over a hundred joint affairs involving 29 types of natural persons and business entities to be handled in one go across domains.

69 seals convey the local determination and efforts to deepen the construction of a unified national market. Li Xinhui, Director of the Administrative Approval and Government Information Management Bureau of Lingbao City, said that in recent years, the local government has conducted dozens of research trips to other provinces and participated in more than 30 coordination meetings. The "inter provincial communication" service system has gradually improved, and the number of communication matters has expanded from the first batch of 33 to 188, solving the problem of "multi headed and turnaround" for enterprises and the public to handle affairs in different places.

The free flow and efficient allocation of factors have propelled neighboring regions between provinces onto the fast lane of collaborative development. In recent years, Lingbao City and Tongguan County have signed a memorandum of understanding for the construction of the Henan Shaanxi Cooperation Pilot Zone, relying on the production factor advantages of Tongguan Industrial Park and the industrial and infrastructure advantages of Lingbao Yuling Industrial Park to jointly create a Henan Shaanxi Cooperation Pilot Zone with a total area of 30 square kilometers.

The industrial parks of the two places have broken down barriers, connected as one, and developed together, "said Dang Minglei, Deputy Director of the Economic Development Department of Lingbao Advanced Manufacturing Development Zone. The two places have taken the lead in achieving road connectivity, sewage treatment, infrastructure construction, and public service sharing.

Yuling Town is a microcosm of Henan's promotion of inter provincial cooperation and development among adjacent areas. In recent years, in order to break through bottlenecks, Henan has established a coordination mechanism at the provincial level to serve the unified national market and promote the resolution of major issues across industries, departments, and fields. The person in charge of the Development and Reform Commission of Henan Province stated that in order to break through the institutional barriers that restrict market unity, Henan has implemented a special action to clean up and rectify market access barriers, issued a standardized implementation plan for investment attraction behavior, established a mechanism for initial reporting and discussion of investment attraction projects, carried out special rectification of bidding, engineering construction, government procurement, and other policies and measures that hinder the construction of a unified national market, and promoted the modification or abolition of 106 policy documents at all levels. In the first three quarters of this year, social security services were provided to 750000 people across provinces, a year-on-year increase of 17.8%.

In order to promote cross regional cooperation, Henan continues to deepen its opening up to the outside world, strengthen cooperation with neighboring regions such as Henan, Shandong, Henan, Anhui, Henan, Shanxi, and Shaanxi, and implement cooperation projects such as infrastructure interconnection, industrial innovation collaboration, and ecological protection linkage. A total of 49 inter provincial channels have been connected. On November 6th this year, Shangqiu City in Henan Province held a conference on promoting high-quality development in the inter provincial border areas of Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, and Henan provinces. At the meeting, 10 cities in the four provinces of Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, and Henan signed 10 key areas of collaborative high-quality development agreements, covering logistics, credit, social security, healthcare, environmental protection, and other fields, breaking down administrative barriers and promoting high-quality development in a coordinated manner.

The Central Plains, which has the advantages of industry, population, resources, transportation and so on, is the epitome of China's super large market. In the historical process of promoting the construction of a national unified market in depth, the blockages have been broken one by one, and the big market is bursting out with unlimited opportunities, becoming a new driving force to promote high-quality development, accelerate the construction of a new development pattern, and write the chapter of Chinese path to modernization in Henan.