In the first five months of 2026, Dalian’s foreign trade exports increased by 15.5% year-on-year, outperforming the national market.
However, behind the eye-catching data are tough battles such as the implementation of EU carbon tariffs, sharp exchange rate fluctuations, and the “two-way squeeze” of the global industrial chain.
We are both located in Northeast Asia and are northern cities under pressure from foreign trade. Why are Shenyang and Ningbo coping in a more organized manner?
By figuring out what these two cities have done right, Dalian companies can find their own path to breakout.
Comparing Shenyang to Dalian is because the two companies face almost the same difficulties: high threshold for small, medium and micro enterprises to go overseas, lack of foreign-related legal services, and insufficient experience in developing emerging markets (especially Russia).
However, Shenyang took the lead in building the Liaoning cross-border digital trade public service center for “Liaoning goods across the sea”, creating a “one center + four platforms + six systems” structure, covering everything from store incubation, compliance customs clearance to overseas warehouses and foreign exchange settlement.
Ningbo is different. It is famous for its digital supply chain of commodities. Through the “blockchain + digital warehouse receipt” model, the warehouse receipts can be traced and pledged, and a single ship can save an average of about 10,000 US dollars in port demurrage fees.
The two reference objects respectively point to the two key propositions of small and medium-sized enterprises going overseas and improving the efficiency of heavy industry supply chains.
The biggest difference between Shenyang and Dalian is not the resources, but the degree of integration of “government and enterprise legal services”.
Shenyang has directly embedded the foreign-related legal service station into the cross-border platform to provide free compliance guidance and risk warnings, greatly reducing the concerns of enterprises that “they dare not go overseas or will not go overseas”.
Ningbo has completed the closed loop of “digital cost reduction” – its customs clearance facilitation measures allow bulk commodity ships to “pick up the ship as soon as it berths and unload the cargo after receiving it”, reducing logistics costs by 20%.
Dalian is not without its advantages: the country’s first three facilitation measures of “bonded ore blending” and “full-process supervision of incoming grain” have been promoted across the country; the “bonded LCL” export shipping business in the special area of Northeast China, which Dalian was the first to implement, has reduced logistics costs by nearly 30%.
Do these two things deeply and thoroughly, and the foundation will be good.
Ningbo’s experience cannot be copied in its entirety.
Ningbo’s cross-border e-commerce ecology can realize “one man becomes an army” entrepreneurship, relying on the natural conditions of high industrial concentration and close supply of goods to the port. However, Dalian’s mechanical and electrical and shipbuilding manufacturing has large single transactions and long funding cycles, so the small seller model is not suitable.
However, the idea of digital supply chain management is fully applicable – Dalian Heavy Industry Equipment Group has mastered the entire series of marine crankshaft manufacturing processes through independent research and development. If this step can be connected with the Ningbo-style commodity data platform to achieve real-time ordering and tracking of global shipowners, the profit margin will not only be as simple as saving demurrage fees.
Horizontal comparison is not to pour cold water on Dalian enterprises, but to turn the detours taken by others into our own road signs.
Dalian’s foreign trade growth is still accelerating, with exports to ASEAN growing by 66.8% and exports to “One Belt, One Road” countries accounting for 61% – this shows that the market is in the right direction.
Making up the two shortcomings of “foreign-related legal services” and “digital supply chain” is the key to maintaining profits and accelerating performance in a volatile external environment.
Facts have proven that the most effective response is never to “wait for the wind to come”, but to take action yourself.
