Resilience and Vitality from the Perspective of a Trillion Dollar Foreign Trade Province (Financial Depth)

In 2025, China's total import and export value of goods trade will reach 4.547 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.8%, continuing to maintain its position as the world's largest country in goods trade. Each province fully leverages its geographical advantages, based on its resource endowment, and actively contributes to the steady development of China's import and export. The "transcript" of foreign trade demonstrates the resilience and vitality of the Chinese economy.

Industrial upgrading builds a new foundation for foreign trade

At the port of Sarat in Argentina, BYD's own new energy vehicle transport ship "Changzhou" arrived, carrying over 5800 new energy vehicles. This is the largest single port scale import of Chinese brand electric vehicles in Argentine history, and also the first time that Chinese car companies have systematically entered the Argentine market through self operated fleets, direct sales models, and a full range of product combinations.

The core confidence for high-quality development of foreign trade comes from the iterative upgrading of industrial competitiveness. As the "number one province in China's foreign trade", Guangdong will lead the country for 40 consecutive years with an import and export scale of 9.49 trillion yuan by 2025. Light industrial products, once synonymous with "Guangzhou goods", have now evolved into a "new Guangzhou goods" matrix such as electronic information and high-end equipment, with "high-end breakthroughs" becoming a distinctive feature. In 2025, Guangdong's high-tech product exports will exceed 1 trillion yuan for the first time, reaching 1.14 trillion yuan.

In Jiangyin Comprehensive Bonded Zone, Jiangsu, 36 wind turbine blades from Far East Energy Co., Ltd. are being shipped here and will soon be sent overseas. The transformation path of Jiangsu's foreign trade presents the characteristics of "cluster upgrading". By 2025, the export proportion of mechanical and electrical products in the province will exceed 70% for the first time, and advantageous products such as electrical equipment and ships will continue to lead the way.

In Yiwu, Zhejiang, the core landmark project of the sixth generation market - Yiwu Global Digital Trade Center has been completed and put into use. By 2025, it is expected that the sample transaction volume of Yiwu China's small commodity city market will exceed 320 billion yuan, with an average of over 4000 foreign merchants per day, setting a new 10-year high. By 2025, the import and export scale of Zhejiang's foreign trade will reach 5.55 trillion yuan, and "digital transformation" will become a prominent label of Zhejiang's foreign trade.

By 2025, the total import and export volume of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Shandong, Beijing, and Fujian provinces and cities will reach 34.11 trillion yuan, contributing more than half of China's foreign trade increment and effectively stabilizing the foundation of foreign trade. "Jiang Zhao, deputy researcher at the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, said that through this foreign trade" report card ", it is not difficult to find that China's exports are gradually shifting from" quantity expansion "to" both quantity expansion and quality improvement ". High tech products have become the leading force in trade growth, and the contribution rate of technology intensive products continues to increase.

Market layout building a new risk resistant ecosystem

The complex and ever-changing global trade environment has forced various regions to accelerate the diversification of their international market layout. China's foreign trade enterprises have deepened traditional market cooperation and expanded emerging market space, effectively dispersing the volatility risks of a single market and opening up new incremental space for foreign trade growth.

After a 14 day long journey across the Eurasian continent, the first China Europe freight train departing from the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area this year successfully arrived in Malaszewicz, Poland, with 110 standard containers filled with electronic products, daily necessities, and other goods. Among them, TCL's semiconductor display panels and other key components are the heavy goods of this train, and this batch of goods was quickly transported to the TCL TV factory located in Jiralduff as soon as it arrived at the station.

In recent years, the company has been committed to transforming from exporting products to exporting industrial capabilities, extending the industrial advantages of Chinese manufacturing to major global markets, and jointly building a more open, collaborative, and win-win global innovation cooperation ecosystem with local partners, "said Li Dongsheng, founder and chairman of TCL.

The international market layout of Guangdong presents the characteristics of "traditional market stabilizing, emerging market breaking". By 2025, Guangdong's imports and exports to the three major trading partners of ASEAN, EU, and Hong Kong will all exceed one trillion yuan; Import and export to countries jointly building the "the Belt and Road" reached 3.66 trillion yuan, up 5%.

Zhejiang's international market expansion focuses on "emerging markets" and demonstrates strong market adaptation capabilities. In 2025, ASEAN surpassed the European Union for the first time to become Zhejiang's largest trading partner, with imports and exports reaching 869.07 billion yuan, an increase of 16.5%. Yiwu small commodities are transported directly to more than 20 countries in Central Asia and Europe through the "Yixin Europe" train, forming a small commodity trade network of "buying globally and selling globally".

As an international shipping center, Shanghai's market layout highlights its advantages of "hub radiation+global configuration". In 2025, the import and export of Shanghai to countries jointly building the "the Belt and Road" will grow by 12.1%, and it will become an important node connecting the domestic and international markets through the linkage of China Europe trains and ocean routes.

Under multiple challenges, it is not easy for China to continuously optimize its foreign trade structure and take new steps towards market diversification.

Jiang Zhao stated that in the rapidly changing international market, more and more foreign trade enterprises are actively seeking change and taking the initiative. Diversified international market channels provide risk buffering for enterprises and also build platforms for product transformation and upgrading towards high-end brands. China is expanding its imports with full sincerity and a win-win situation of "you in me", providing valuable stability and certainty for world economic and trade cooperation.

New business models open up new channels for small and medium-sized enterprises to go global

As soon as he opened his eyes, there were hundreds of messages on WeChat, all urging customs clearance. During this period, Li Shibin, the business manager of Yiwu Ruixiang Customs Declaration Company, had to rush to the supervision site of Yiwu Port every morning, checking the container customs declaration form and coordinating the pickup of containers by trucks. The surge in foreign trade orders and the race against time on the front line are a reflection of Yiwu's foreign trade personnel before the Spring Festival.

With the empowerment of digital technology, upgrading of logistics system, and optimization of policy environment, China's foreign trade enterprises have broken the time and space limitations of traditional trade, and more enterprises can participate in global competition.

With the core of "improving the quality of high-end services and breaking through institutional openness", Shanghai's service trade will reach a new high in 2025. The total revenue and expenditure of service trade for the whole year exceeded 250 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 2.2%, accounting for nearly 30% of the national total, and continuously ranking first in the country. Among them, the development of emerging productive service trade, which relies on digital technology and knowledge intensive elements to provide intermediate services for production, manufacturing, and commercial operations, is showing a good trend.

The innovation path in Jiangsu presents a synergistic effect of "industrial e-commerce+supply chain finance". The cross-border e-commerce comprehensive service platform built in Suzhou integrates full process services such as customs declaration, logistics, tax refund, and financing, and will drive a 35% increase in cross-border e-commerce exports for small and medium-sized enterprises by 2025.

Zhejiang's business innovation is driven by the dual engines of "digital trade+market procurement". As a leading province in the national digital economy, Zhejiang will export over 900 billion yuan in new formats such as market procurement, cross-border e-commerce, and bonded maintenance by 2025, ranking first in the country.

China's foreign trade operators are constantly engaging in new business models, stimulating new momentum in foreign trade through technological innovation, and taking high-quality and diversified new steps under multiple challenges. Experts suggest that we should continue to accelerate the development of new formats and models such as cross-border e-commerce, overseas warehouses, and market procurement trade, and explore new trade spaces.

The high-quality development of China's foreign trade is not a single dimensional improvement, but a systematic transformation of industrial upgrading, market diversification, and business innovation. The external environment that China is currently facing has undergone profound and complex changes, but the development of foreign trade still has many favorable conditions. Recently, Guangdong has launched a grand "Guanghuo Xingxia" campaign, with the main focus on helping foreign trade enterprises expand their markets, strengthen their industries, and establish their brands. Other major foreign trade provinces in China, including Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, have also introduced measures to stabilize foreign trade and growth.

China's trade innovation and development pace is more solid, advantages are more prominent, trading partners are more diverse, and development resilience is stronger, which will inject more certainty into global economic and trade development, "said Liao Bingguang, a researcher at the Institute of Reform, Opening up and Modernization of Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences.