With continuous favorable policies, my country’s foreign trade field is ushering in new development opportunities.
At a press briefing held by the General Administration of Customs on January 15, Xie Fang, deputy director of the National Port Management Office, announced a new batch of 25 cross-border trade facilitation measures to be replicated and promoted across the country. This series of measures is like a shot in the arm, releasing stronger momentum to stabilize the volume and quality of my country’s foreign trade and create new advantages for opening up to the outside world.
Judging from the latest data released by the General Administration of Customs on the 14th, my country’s foreign trade import and export performance in 2025 is remarkable.
The annual foreign trade import and export volume reached 45.47 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.8%, and imports and exports with more than 190 countries and regions achieved growth.
Among them, the export of high-tech products and the export of “three new products” showed a growth trend of 13.2% and 27.1% respectively. There are more than 780,000 business entities with import and export records.
These eye-catching data demonstrate the strong resilience and vitality of my country’s foreign trade.
The high-quality development of foreign trade is inseparable from the continuous improvement of trade convenience.
Since 2018, the General Administration of Customs, together with relevant departments, has carried out special actions to promote cross-border trade facilitation every year. As of 2024, a total of 115 facilitation measures have been introduced.
From April to September 2025, 20 departments including the General Administration of Customs and the Ministry of Commerce carried out a five-month special operation to facilitate cross-border trade in 25 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing, and launched 29 pilot innovative policy measures with remarkable results.
A questionnaire survey showed that 98% of enterprises expressed satisfaction with the special actions, which fully proves that my country’s port business environment is constantly being optimized.
This special operation has achieved fruitful results.
In terms of helping the market to increase confidence, the pilot application of “two certificates in one” for imported motor vehicles was expanded, 460,000 certificates were issued, and work efficiency increased by more than 80%; during the special action, exports through market procurement trade were 461.58 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.4%.
In terms of helping enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency, the policy dividend of active disclosure was released, and tax and late payment fees were reduced and exempted by 20.961 million yuan for eligible enterprises; the pilot of the “inspect first and then shipped” model for export LCL goods was expanded, increasing the overall efficiency of exports by 30% and reducing logistics costs by nearly 20%.
In terms of helping to continuously improve the business environment, we continue to optimize the visa-free policy and expand the scope of visa-free countries, so that “China Travel” and “China Purchase” continue to heat up. The international trade “single window” also realizes electronic data exchange such as certificates of origin and inspection and quarantine certificates with 15 countries (regions).
The State Council executive meeting held on December 31, 2025 put forward new requirements for cross-border logistics, special commodity supervision and other aspects.
In order to implement the spirit of the meeting, after summary and evaluation, it was decided to replicate and promote 25 policies and measures in 5 aspects across the country.
In terms of promoting the efficient and smooth flow of cross-border logistics, there are 7 measures including deepening the coordination of entry and exit of multimodal transport and supporting the development of the “Aerial Silk Road”; in terms of supporting the development of new business formats and new models, there are 5 measures including supporting the air transport of live cargo.
In addition, there are also various measures to optimize the supervision model of special commodities, improve the level of intelligent supervision services, and enhance the effectiveness of benefiting enterprises and convenience for the people.
As a new form of foreign trade, cross-border e-commerce has become an important trend in the development of international trade and a new driving force for China’s foreign trade.
In order to help export enterprises solve the capital turnover problem, the cross-border e-commerce policy of “tax refund upon departure and re-accounting after sale” for goods exported to overseas warehouses has shortened the tax refund cycle and improved the capital turnover rate.
Chang Hui, a second-level inspector of the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said that in the future, overall coordination will be strengthened to create an environment conducive to the development of new business formats and new models, and promote the healthy, sustainable and innovative development of cross-border e-commerce.
At the same time, my country has further promoted the construction of a “single window” for international trade. It has now built a “one-stop” comprehensive service platform, which is connected to the system of 30 departments (units) and provides 1,010 services in 25 categories covering all major links in the entire process of international trade, helping enterprises to achieve “one-stop service” for the entire chain of cross-border trade business.
