In the first quarter of 2026, the foreign trade report cards of major cities across the country will be released one after another.
The foreign trade import and export of cities such as Xi’an, Fuzhou, Chongqing, Tangshan, and Hefei have maintained a growth rate of more than 30%. Xi’an, which is not close to the sea or border, has become the “biggest dark horse” on the foreign trade map.
According to data from the General Administration of Customs, in the first quarter of 2026, Xi’an’s import and export volume was 181.922 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 74.24%; exports were 141.
606 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 95.91%. The growth rate is leading the major cities in the country and far exceeds the national average export growth rate of 11.9%. It also leaves Shenzhen, Shanghai, Suzhou and other traditional foreign trade strong cities far behind.
.
So why does Xi’an, which is not close to the sea or border and located in the inland northwest, rank first in the country in terms of foreign trade acceleration?
From a national perspective, in the first quarter of 2026, the country’s import and export of foreign trade goods was 11.84 trillion yuan, with both imports and exports achieving double-digit growth.
Among the 29 trillion-dollar cities, the foreign trade import and export scale has reached 8.15 trillion yuan, accounting for 68.9% of the country. Compared with the same period last year, it increased by 1.5 percentage points, and the leading advantage is more obvious.
This round of growth in China’s import and export is mainly affected by factors such as the explosive growth in global AI computing power demand and the energy crisis. In the first quarter of this year, integrated circuits, my country’s largest single foreign trade product, saw an increase in export value of as high as 77.5%.
Therefore, Xi’an, which is located in the inland west, is at the forefront.
The strong growth of Xi’an’s foreign trade in this round is mainly due to export-driven development, with strong support from key industries such as semiconductors, new energy vehicles and photovoltaics.
In the first quarter, Xi’an’s export growth rate reached 95.91%, leading the way among large and medium-sized cities in the country. Exports accounted for 77.7%, with a trade surplus of over 100 billion yuan. It is a typical export-driven growth, and its gold content is far better than that of cities that rely on imports to support their scale.
In fact, in the past three years, Xi’an’s foreign trade has maintained a good growth rate, with an average annual growth rate of more than 14%. In the first quarter of this year, the export volume was 141.606 billion yuan. Xi’an’s exports have ranked 12th in the country, surpassing many traditional export-oriented cities in a row, and the growth rate is unparalleled. No opponent can match it.
Leading companies represented by Samsung, BYD and Longi Green Energy have strong global competitiveness, which also represents Xi’an’s advantages in these emerging industries.
Therefore, the explosion of Xi’an’s foreign trade is not due to good luck, but the inevitable result of Xi’an’s industry, channels and innovation in the past two decades.
The confidence for the rapid growth of foreign trade always comes from the hard power of industry, and behind the growth rate of foreign trade is often the trend of industrial development in a city.
The core of Xi’an’s foreign trade explosion is the overall explosion of Xi’an’s high-end manufacturing in the past few years.
In the first two months of the first quarter, Xi’an’s exports of mechanical and electrical products reached 82.04 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 97.5%, accounting for 57.9% of the total export value, accounting for half of Xi’an’s exports, and almost single-handedly driving the city’s foreign trade boom.
From the perspective of industry segments, Xi’an’s integrated circuit exports reached 46.28 billion yuan, a growth rate of 140.7%, stepping into the global AI computing power explosion; Xi’an is home to the two giants Samsung and Micron, among which Xi’an is Samsung’s largest overseas flash memory base in the world. Xi’an has become one of the core sources of China’s computing power exports.
At the same time, Xi’an’s semiconductor industry has gathered more than 200 companies, forming a full industry chain development model covering front-end materials, terminal manufacturing, packaging and testing, and back-end applications. Among them, Yuanjie Technology, the leading optical chip company, once became the king of new A-share stocks.
In addition, Xi’an’s lithium batteries, new energy vehicles, photovoltaic modules, electrical equipment and communication equipment are also new forces in this round of rapid growth in Xi’an’s foreign trade.
Among them, the export of automatic data processing equipment reached 15.69 billion yuan, a growth rate of 205.1%, and the export of computing power hardware increased exponentially; while the export of electrical equipment also reached 2.12 billion yuan, a growth rate of 59%, and new momentum continued to increase.
The simultaneous development of the “three new things” such as new energy vehicles, lithium batteries and photovoltaic modules, coupled with the export of computing power represented by semiconductors, has allowed Xi’an to occupy a high-value link in the global industrial chain and completely get rid of the traditional inland trade that relies on resources and primary products.
Good products must be shipped quickly and economically.
If there is no seaport, Xi’an will build its own land port; at the same time, with the help of an airport hub to build an airport, Xi’an’s foreign trade channels will completely break out of geographical restrictions.
China-Europe freight trains are the biggest trump card of Xi’an’s foreign trade. In the first two months of this year, Xi’an operated 1,037 China-Europe freight trains, transporting 98,000 TEUs, a year-on-year increase of 33.6% and 21.6% respectively.
At the same time, Xi’an also has three full timetable trains, which run stably six times a week and three times a week. It is the gathering center for China-Europe trains with the most routes and the highest density in the country.
The rapid growth of China-Europe trains has completely brought Xi’an to the center of the Asia-Europe supply chain, connecting the coast to the east, reaching Europe to the west, radiating to ASEAN to the south, and running through Mongolia and Russia to the north. It is not close to the sea but has global connectivity.
In addition to China-Europe freight trains, the development of air cargo has also become the key to the growth of Xi’an’s foreign trade. In the first quarter of 2026, Xi’an opened five new international all-cargo routes: Paris, Rome, Bergamo, Athens and Barcelona. The international cargo and mail throughput reached 24,400 tons, a year-on-year increase of 103%, and the growth rate ranked second among the national airports.
While the channel is opening, Xi’an is also accelerating its market expansion. In the first quarter of this year, Xi’an’s imports and exports to South Korea, ASEAN, the European Union, and Malaysia all increased significantly, with the highest growth rate of 140.6%.
The import and export to countries along the Belt and Road was 61.75 billion yuan, an increase of 77.4%, accounting for over 54%. The import and export to RCEP member countries was 49.38 billion yuan, an increase of 85.7%, accounting for nearly 44%. With the opening of the markets of countries along the Belt and Road and RCEP-related countries, it has become an important support for the continued growth of Xi’an’s foreign trade.
The current round of foreign trade explosion in Xi’an is actually another upgrade and transformation of the national industry. For other cities, whether they can cultivate related emerging industries into the backbone of urban development within the next five-year window period is the key to the transformation of urban development momentum.
Therefore, the outbreak in Xi’an is not a special case, but a trend of industrial development. According to the plan, Xi’an will strive to increase the scale of emerging pillar industries to more than 700 billion yuan in 2030, truly reshaping the city’s industrial competitiveness.
A strong foreign trade city that is not close to the sea is standing at the new outlet of China’s opening up and accelerating.
Xi’an, come on!
