Horgos in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, once a vital point on the ancient Silk Road, has become an international logistics powerhouse, serving as a major hub for Belt and Road cooperation, especially with central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan.
The city's cross-border e-commerce trade volume skyrocketed by 889 percent in the first half of this year compared to 2024, according to the Horgos Municipal Bureau of Commerce.
In a market complex in Horgos, salespeople are busy selling goods to European and Central Asian consumers through livestreaming in English, Russian, or Kazakh.
One of the salespeople is Dimash Yerlan, who came to Horgos last year. In just a few months, his livestreaming account has amassed over 100,000 followers.
"People in our country love to drink juice, and juicers like this are particularly popular, with hundreds of them sold a day," said Dimash.
A less-than-four-square-kilometer bonded area in Horgos has became home to 45 cross-border e-commerce companies, eight overseas operations centers, and hundreds of livestreaming sales teams. A high-standard cross-border e-commerce industrial park has also been built.
Horgos' increasing attractiveness among businesses is largely attributed to its logistics.
"It is smooth to ship goods from Horgos to Central Asia and Europe, both by rail and road. Goods can reach Almaty in half a day. Furthermore, goods can be quickly distributed in Horgos, greatly reducing intermediaries and lowering transportation costs. These make products pretty competitive in overseas markets," said Henizaet Tohuet, head of a cross-border e-commerce company.
About three kilometers from the industrial park is located the Horgos Port, which sees a vast number of vehicles passing through every day.
The vehicles include not only large trucks laden with cross-border parcels, but also Chinese-made new energy vehicles and agricultural machinery, and even wind turbine blades tens of meters long.
In 2012, fewer than 400 vehicles passed through this area daily, and the newly opened railway crossing saw only one freight train.
Today, 27 China-Europe freight trains and 1,800 vehicles of various types pass through the area each day, with annual cargo volume reaching 45.566 million tons, 2.74 times as 2012.
"I've been driving between Almaty and Horgos for over 10 years. There wasn't so much cargo before, and I was lucky to make a trip in nearly half a month. Now, I'm pretty busy. I have to make a round trip about every three days," said Hutbek Ashati, a trucker.
Customs officers said efforts have been made to simplify clearance procedures to increase transport efficiency.
"The number of customs clearance steps has been reduced from 12 to four, and customs clearance time has been reduced from over 30 hours to less than five, increasing customs clearance efficiency by 80 percent," said Yang Qiang, chief of the first supervision section of Horgos Customs.
With improved connectivity, Horgos has become a transport hub for Belt and Road cooperation, attracting modern industrial parks and business clusters that focus on trade logistics and equipment manufacturing.
Its GDP has grown from 6.2 billion yuan (about 870.21 million U.S. dollars) at the beginning of the city's establishment in 2015 to 20.2 billion yuan in 2024.
NW China border city in Xinjiang transforms into int'l transport hub
NW China border city in Xinjiang transforms into int'l transport hub
