Foreign trade is an important engine to drive economic growth and a key hub for smoothing domestic and international dual circulation.

Since the beginning of this year, although external pressures and challenges have continued to increase, our province's foreign trade has withstood the pressure, maintained momentum of momentum, and has strong imports and exports. In the first half of the year, Gansu's total foreign trade import and export value was 35.21 billion yuan, an increase of 33.8% year-on-year, ranking second in the country. Among them, exports were 8.56 billion yuan, an increase of 40.5%; imports were 26.65 billion yuan, an increase of 31.7%, ranking first in the country in terms of growth rate.

Gansu’s outstanding foreign trade report card not only demonstrates the strong resilience and vigorous vitality of Gansu’s economy, but also fully reflects Gansu’s confidence and determination to unswervingly promote high-level opening up and effectively transform the greatest opportunity of the “Belt and Road” into the greatest results of high-quality development.

The greatest opportunity continues to amplify

In the first half of the year, Gansu imported and exported 26.53 billion yuan to countries jointly built the "Belt and Road" countries, an increase of 33.1%, accounting for 75.3% of the total import and export value.

It is not difficult to see from the data that the rapid growth of imports and exports to countries that jointly build the "Belt and Road" has become an important engine for Gansu's foreign trade to show resilience upward under pressure.

This is reflected in the development of enterprises and on the table of consumers.

On April 11, Gansu (Lanzhou) International Land Port, double happiness is coming.

The delivery event of the "China-Jiji-U-A" railway-tunnel international freight train, hosted by Gansu International Logistics Group, was held here.

Gansu Co., Ltd., a land-sea new channel operation affiliated to Gansu International Logistics Group, actively connects with ASEAN enterprises and imports Southeast Asian fruits. Dragon fruit, longan, green pomelo, durian, etc. from ASEAN arrived in Lanzhou along the new western land-sea channel through road-rail transport, and "placed" the Southeast Asian tropical fruits on the dining tables of consumers in the northwest region of my country.

There is an "enter" from the east and an "exit" from the west.

Gansu Co., Ltd. leverages its own advantages to explore the market, extends the "China-Jiji-Ukraine" Central Asia New Channel international freight train forward, and realizes the delivery of the "China-Jiji-Ukraine-A" railway-Highway intermodal international freight train. Gansu's industrial and mining products, agricultural and special products and wind power equipment are sent to Central Asia as fast as possible.

Break out of the new land-sea channel to operate Gansu Co., Ltd., and then look at the trade vitality of Gansu International Logistics Group.

In the first half of the year, Gansu International Logistics Group's import and export trade volume exceeded 1.243 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 52.2%, and achieved multiple "first orders" breakthroughs in the field of foreign trade - the first order of 2,000 tons of steel and 300 tons of aluminum coils were exported to the UAE, the first order of 521 train accessories was exported to Kazakhstan, and the first order of inbound and outbound maintenance items (Kazakhstan locomotive) business in Gansu Province was implemented...

These "first orders" fully demonstrate the rapid growth of foreign trade vitality of our province's import and export to countries jointly building the "Belt and Road".

Not only in the field of commerce and circulation.

In the first half of the year, Gansu's trade cooperation with countries jointly building the "Belt and Road" has bear fruit in many fields.

In March this year, the second phase emission phase 1 dam construction and supporting engineering project of the Peruvian Company's Shouxin Peru Company's 2# tailings pond was completed, with a total investment of 314.53 million yuan;

Desert oil drilling rigs, offshore oil module drilling rigs, oil pumps, pressure vessels, reactors, fast forging presses, etc. produced by Lanshi Group are exported to countries and regions such as Russia, Algeria, South Africa, Singapore, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates;

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Since the beginning of this year, Gansu has deeply integrated into the high-quality joint construction of the "Belt and Road" and the construction of the new western land-sea channel, deepening reform and expanding opening up with greater courage and determination, and the "circle of friends" for win-win cooperation is getting bigger and bigger.

In the first half of the year, Kazakhstan, Indonesia and Australia were the top three trading partners of Gansu. Gansu's imports and exports to other RCEP members grew rapidly, and foreign trade showed strong resilience.

Continuous optimization of industrial structure

In the first half of the year, Gansu's total export value was 8.56 billion yuan, an increase of 40.5%; the total import value was 26.65 billion yuan, an increase of 31.7%.

Why did exports grow strongly?

This is due to the acceleration of the construction of a modern industrial system in our province, which has led to the export structure becoming better and new.

In recent years, Gansu has accelerated the construction of a modern industrial system, promoted the extension of traditional industries such as petrochemicals, nonferrous metallurgy, coal building materials, and equipment manufacturing to the high-end, and promoted the accelerated development of strategic emerging industries such as new energy, new materials, biomedicine, and digital economy.

In the first half of the year, Gansu exported 200 million yuan of "new three" products (electric vehicles, photovoltaic products, and lithium-ion batteries), an increase of 17.9 times, of which 170 million yuan of photovoltaic products were exported, an increase of 138.2 times. Exports of basic organic chemicals were RMB 270 million, an increase of 27.8%. During the same period, Gansu exported 3.19 billion yuan of mechanical and electrical products, an increase of 10.2%; and exported 1.62 billion yuan of agricultural products.

In the first half of the year, Lanshi Group successfully signed a contract with Saudi Arabia's two companies to 70MPa (megapas) skid-loading hydrogen refueling station and 10Nm3/h PEM electrolytic water hydrogen production equipment project.

This is closely related to Lanshi Group seizing the new round of energy revolution and "dual carbon" opportunities, and vigorously carrying out hydrogen energy equipment research and development and key technology research.

In Jiuquan Economic and Technological Development Zone, Ouhao New Energy Power (Gansu) Co., Ltd.'s production workshop, three automated production lines are running at high speed, and a batch of exported photovoltaic cell orders are accelerated.

"At present, the international market demand for photovoltaic batteries is strong, our orders and production capacity remain stable, and this year it plans to achieve an export output value of 400 million to 500 million yuan." Sun Zhenming, the head of the company, introduced that their new energy equipment products have been exported to India, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates and other countries and regions.

Gansu meets international market demand with more new content, green content, high value-added and high-tech products. High-end equipment closely related to new quality productivity has attracted repeat customers internationally. The "new three" products representing green and low-carbon have grown significantly, and Gansu's position in the global industrial chain and supply chain continues to improve.

Why does imports perform better?

This is closely related to Gansu's efforts to promote the quality upgrade of economic development and the growth of domestic demand. The expansion of domestic demand has effectively driven import growth.

On the one hand, Gansu has leveraged the advantages of the old industrial base in the western region, implemented the "Four Top" action in depth, and focused on promoting the stable and improving industrial economy, and the growth of industrial production in the province, and the import of raw materials related to industrial production increased accordingly.

In the first half of the year, copper ore sand, nickel sulfonium and nickel ore sand were the main imported commodities in our province.

Take Gansu International Logistics Group’s mineral product import business as an example.

In the first half of the year, Gansu International Logistics Group established a Peru overseas warehouse in South America, leveraging the advantages of Qiankai Port, achieving 9,100 tons of silver concentrate imports and earning more than 98 million yuan in foreign exchange, becoming a new highlight of foreign trade. This innovative measure has effectively helped provincial enterprises to achieve optimal resource allocation worldwide.

On the other hand, in the implementation of the special action to boost consumption, Gansu has grown in market consumption demand and commodity sales have rebounded, driving the growth of imports of some consumer goods.

On January 10, the China-Europe grain train carrying 1,400 tons of Russian buckwheat arrived at the Lanzhou Railway Port, becoming the first China-Europe international freight train to arrive in Gansu Province in 2025;

On January 24, Gansu's first parallel imported vehicle entered the country smoothly in 2025 at the Gansu (Lanzhou) International Land Port complete vehicle import port;

On May 21, Gansu International Logistics Group imported the first order of 134 tons of S17 dried peppers from India and arrived in China, and will then be distributed to pepper processing enterprises and consumer markets;

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In the first half of the year, Gansu expanded the export of new energy equipment, mechanical and electrical products, specialty agricultural products, etc., increased the import of energy resources and mineral products, grain and oil, advanced technology and equipment, etc., and drove the integration of advantageous industries into the global industrial chain and supply chain.

The two markets and two resources are connected and interacted, and the two types of resources are put in a two-way effort.

Gansu's accelerated construction of an industrial system, highly competitive products, more humane services and strong consumer demand have injected surging momentum and unlimited vitality into the continuous growth of foreign trade imports and exports.

Service quality and efficiency continue to improve

Foreign trade maintains stable growth in a complex environment, which is inseparable from policy support.

In the first half of the year, Gansu's foreign trade entities continued to increase their efforts, with 779 enterprises with import and export performance, with a net increase of 122.

This is Gansu's in-depth implementation of the "Year of Optimizing the Business Environment and Comprehensively Improving the Year" action, focusing on creating a market-oriented, law-based, internationalized and convenient business environment, promoting institutional opening up, optimizing the trade structure, improving the level of customs clearance facilitation, and further releasing a vivid manifestation of corporate vitality.

In Jinchang, the local government has focused on promoting the national foreign economic and trade quality improvement and efficiency improvement demonstration project in Jinchang Economic and Technological Development Zone, and timely allocated 6 foreign economic and trade quality improvement and efficiency improvement projects in Jinchang Economic and Technological Development Zone to support the high-quality development of enterprises.

In Lanzhou New District, the Provincial Department of Commerce, Lanzhou Customs, Jincheng Customs, and Lanzhou New District Commercial, Culture and Tourism Bureau have worked efficiently to help Lanzhou New District Comprehensive Bonded Zone companies solve various problems in the process of importing goods, support Lanzhou New District Comprehensive Bonded Zone to deepen and simplify equipment supervision, optimize account book management and other reforms, promote the integrated upgrade of districts and ports, and ensure the smooth delivery of imported goods to Lanzhou New District Comprehensive Bonded Zone.

In the first half of the year, state-owned enterprises played a major role in the strong growth of Gansu's foreign trade, and the import of key resource products has significantly boosted the growth of Gansu's foreign trade.

Lanzhou Customs has promoted Jinchuan Group and Baiyin Nonferrous Metals Group to join the national customs clearance model pilot enterprises for the "port destination joint supervision" customs clearance model of imported railway transportation copper concentrate, and transformed the results of smart customs construction into regulatory efficiency and enterprise convenience. The turnover of copper concentrate entering the factory was shortened from 18 days to about 8 days, and the customs clearance time was compressed from 5-10 days to an average of 30 hours; the cost of logistics savings of enterprises has exceeded 100 million yuan; the front-line operating personnel have been reduced from 4-5 to 2.

In the first half of the year, Gansu private enterprises' imports and exports maintained a steady growth trend. Lanzhou Customs has introduced ten measures to support the high-quality development of foreign trade in private enterprises, and help enterprises develop the market and reduce costs and increase efficiency for enterprises in terms of strengthening policy supply and precise assistance, optimizing customs clearance services and improving efficiency, standardizing supervision and law enforcement and rights protection.

Sun Zhenming, head of Ouhao New Energy Electric Power (Gansu) Co., Ltd., said: "Customs staff provide us with policy support and customs clearance guidance in a timely manner, which has played a key guarantee and support for us to seize the initiative in the international market and promote product exports."

Since the beginning of this year, the Provincial Department of Commerce has continued to make efforts to stabilize foreign trade. Give full play to the role of the working mechanism for stabilizing foreign trade, municipal and prefectures, regularly supervise and dispatch the foreign trade operation of key cities and prefectures and key enterprises; organize a provincial overseas collaborative investment promotion symposium, and establish an overseas collaborative linkage mechanism. In the first half of the year, 43 new foreign-invested enterprises were established in the province. To promote the construction of China-Europe freight train hub, Lanzhou has been identified as a node city for China-Europe freight trains and included in the Northwest Region China-Europe freight train assembly network. In the first half of the year, the province's international freight trains shipped a total of 82 trains and 3,728 vehicles, with the total number of shipped vehicles increasing by 14.4% year-on-year. Promoting the transformation and upgrading of Lanzhou New District Comprehensive Bonded Zone. In the first half of the year, Lanzhou New District Comprehensive Bonded Zone added 26 new registered enterprises, completing imports and exports of 2.64 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 53.2%. (Gansu Daily reporter Wang Zhandong)