Chinese regions strive to ensure strong start in foreign trade after Spring Festival holiday

Henan Daily

Zhengzhou: Regions across China kicked into high gear after the Spring Festival holiday, which ran from Jan. 28 through Feb. 4 this year, to ensure a strong start in the foreign trade sector.

At a workshop of Luoyang Wuyang Three-wheeled Motorcycle Co., Ltd. in Yanshi district, Luoyang, central China’s Henan Province, worker Liang Yun fine-tuned a newly assembled tricycle on Feb. 6.

“We’re racing against the clock to deliver 1,500 tricycles ordered by clients from Tanzania by the end of this month,” said Niu Leidong, the company’s foreign trade manager. To meet the deadline, the company resumed operations on the third day of the Chinese New Year.

These tricycles will be shipped to Tanzania via Qingdao Port in east China’s Shandong Province, Liang said, adding that these years foreign clients have often visited the company’s workshop.

In recent years, tricycles produced in Luoyang have gained popularity abroad thanks to their competitive pricing and practical features.

In 2024, Yanshi district exported over 70,000 complete tricycles and 20 million spare parts, generating an export value of $64.3 million, a 33 percent increase year on year. This year, almost all enterprises in the tricycle industry in the district resumed work on the fifth day of the Chinese New Year.

One out of every three tricycles in China is made in Yanshi, said Ji Xianghui, director of the district’s bureau of commerce, industry and information technology.

This achievement stems from an efficient “15-minute supply chain,” which guarantees that all spare parts needed for the assembly of tricycles can be supplied within 15 minutes. The district is now home to 15 complete tricycle manufacturers and over 200 manufacturers of spare parts.

In 2024, Yanshi district launched a development plan to support the tricycle industry, offering services to businesses in areas such as tax reduction, market access, brand protection, and international market expansion.

“We also support companies in establishing overseas production lines while setting up transit warehouses and opening direct-sales stores abroad,” Ji said.

This year, Henan Province plans to implement initiatives to expand markets and nurture foreign trade entities, including organizing companies to participate in 50 major exhibitions around the world, with a target of securing 20 billion yuan ($2.74 billion) in new orders.

On Feb. 6, workers were busy sorting and packaging various products for overseas shipment at the logistics center of the Hunchun Northeast Asia Cross-border E-commerce Industrial Park in Hunchun city, northeast China’s Jilin Province.

Yan Yuchen, who runs an e-commerce company in the industrial park, monitored orders from multiple overseas e-commerce platforms. During this year’s Spring Festival holiday, the company’s sales volume stood at about 1 million yuan, ensuring stable growth, Yan said.

At present, the industrial park has attracted over 200 e-commerce, trade, and logistics companies, with an occupancy rate exceeding 90 percent. Since 2018, Hunchun city’s cross-border e-commerce trade has grown more than a hundredfold, reaching 6.65 billion yuan in 2024, up 30.9 percent from the previous year.

Meanwhile, the China-Europe freight trains through the Alashankou port in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region demonstrate the robust growth in cross-border trade.

“Last year, I was the driver of the 100,000th China-Europe (China-Central Asia) freight train from the Alashankou railway port. Freight volume was particularly high during the Spring Festival holiday, making it a peak period for train departures,” said Cui Kai, a veteran train driver.

Cui has witnessed the transformation of the Alashankou railway port thanks to high-quality Belt and Road cooperation over the past years. What started as occasional China-Europe (China-Central Asia) freight train trips has become a constant flow of more than 200 types of goods, from automotive parts and complete vehicles to household items and engineering equipment, Cui said.

The China-Europe (China-Central Asia) freight train service now connects 26 Chinese provincial regions with 21 countries including Germany, Poland, and Hungary across 123 different routes. So far, the total number of China-Europe (China-Central Asia) freight train trips has surpassed 43,000.

During this year’s Spring Festival holiday, 172 China-Europe (China-Central Asia) freight trains passed through the Alashankou port, marking a 5.5 percent year-on-year increase.