China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) on Wednesday announced a set of initiatives to stabilize foreign trade in 2025, focusing on digitalization, green trade, and expansion of global business platforms amid growing external risks and challenges.
At a press briefing in Beijing, MOFCOM officials outlined plans to accelerate the development of new foreign trade drivers by embracing digitalization. This includes expanding the use of electronic trade documents and encouraging digitalization of the entire trade chain, aiming to streamline processes and improve efficiency.
Green trade will also be a priority, with efforts to help foreign trade enterprises adopt sustainable, low-carbon practices. Steps will be taken to promote the construction of smart logistics platforms overseas, as well as support cross-border e-commerce trade fairs and matchmaking events in regions with suitable infrastructure, thereby creating more opportunities for businesses to showcase products and for matchmaking between supply and demand, according to the officials.
"We will continue to compile and publish the 'Country Trade Guide' and other foreign trade promotion documentations, strengthening information exchange between Chinese and international businesses. We will actively expand the global network of high-standard free trade zones, establish new trade facilitation working groups on the basis of consultation, and pragmatically address the bottlenecks and challenges in bilateral trade to create more business opportunities," said Meng Yue, director of the Foreign Trade Department at the Ministry of Commerce, at the press briefing.
In addition, China will leverage major trade platforms such as the China International Import Expo and the Canton Fair to further market opening, boost imports, and foster innovation in international trade. These efforts are designed to transform China's vast market into a big opportunity for the world, according to the officials.
China's Commerce Ministry announces initiatives to stabilize foreign trade in 2025
China's Commerce Ministry announces initiatives to stabilize foreign trade in 2025
After over five years of construction, the Urumqi-Yuli Expressway that traverses the Tianshan Mountains in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region opened to traffic on Friday, cutting the time of driving from the southern to the northern parts of the towering mountains by half.
Thanks to the entry into operation of the expressway, the travel time from the regional capital of Urumqi, north of the Tianshan Mountains, to Korla, south of the Tianshan Mountains, has been shortened from seven hours to about 3.5 hours.
The Tianshan Mountains, with a length of 2,500 km, spans across the whole the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The Urumqi-Yuli Expressway traversing it is 324.7-kilometer long. It includes 12 interchanges, 17 tunnels and hundreds of bridges, culverts and passages. Among them, the Tianshan Shengli Tunnel is the key project.
"With a total length of 22.13 kilometers, the Tianshan Shengli Tunnel is the world's longest expressway tunnel, and has the deepest highway shaft worldwide, creating two world records," said Song Hailiang, president of China Communications Construction Company.
The Urumqi-Yuli Expressway not only links the Urumqi metropolitan area, the northern Xinjiang urban belt, and the southern Xinjiang city cluster, but also provides convenient connectivity between the three major pilot free trade zones in Urumqi, Kashgar and Khorgos, significantly reducing logistics costs, effectively promoting mutual complementation of resource advantages between northern and southern Xinjiang, and accelerating the two-way circulation of northern Xinjiang's energy and equipment manufacturing with southern Xinjiang's agricultural products and distinctive resources.
It also connects with multiple important highways at home and abroad.
"The Urumqi-Yuli Expressway connects with New Eurasian Land Bridge, and multiple economic corridors' major arteries linking up China to Central Asia, west Asia and Pakistan. Meanwhile, it also connects with the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor. Therefore, operation of the expressway will further consolidate Xinjiang's role as a strategic hub in the 'dual circulation' of domestic and international markets," said Guo Sheng, deputy director of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region's Department of Transportation.
Expressway traversing north, south Xinjiang opens to traffic
