Anhui has steadfastly pursued innovation-driven development, vigorously cultivating new drivers of growth, developing emerging business formats, and exploring new markets. Anhui's foreign trade structure continues to optimize, and scale keeps expanding. In the first half of the year, Anhui's import and export growth rate ranked sixth nationally and in the lead in the Yangtze River Delta region, delivering an impressive performance.  

In the first half of this year, Anhui's total import and export value in goods trade reached 458.54 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.2%. What fueled this growth? The answer lies in key data.  

During the first six months of this year, Anhui exported mechanical and electrical products worth 222.91 billion yuan, accounting for 71.9% of its total export value. Products with relatively rapid export growth included automobiles, laptop computers, household appliances, etc. High-tech products became the main force of exports.

Lenovo Group's LCFC, its largest global R&D and manufacturing base for PCs worldwide, is a representative enterprise for exporting high-tech products. In Q2 this year, the group secured first place in the global PC market with a 24.8% market share. Furthermore, during the first half of the year, LCFC's export trade volume increased by over 35% year-on-year. According to a relative person from the company, its newly launched series of AI PCs have become favorites on the international market thanks to their intelligent features.

Through continuous increases in R&D investment, LCFC has achieved fruitful results in areas such as overall device design and functional innovation, accumulating over 2,300 patents and seizing technological high ground in global competition. 

The fundamental driver of foreign trade growth lies in product competitiveness. Supported by an increasingly refined industrial chain and robust innovation capabilities, Anhui's export-oriented enterprises have achieved high-quality development. Currently, over 7 yuan out of every 10 yuan worth of goods exported from Anhui are mechanical and electrical products. Particularly noteworthy is the automotive industry: in the first half of the year, Chery Group continuously set new records for the speed at which Chinese cars "set sail for overseas markets." On average, one out of every five Chinese cars sold internationally was a "Chery-made" vehicle. 

In addition to high-quality Anhui "Intelligent Manufacturing" products being a key driver of rapid foreign trade growth in the first half of the year, the new business model of cross-border e-commerce, which efficiently reaches global consumers, has also become an important engine.

Anhui is promoting pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce in cities like Hefei and Wuhu by organizing special overseas promotion events. It collaborates with well-known platform service providers to hold activities bringing cross-border e-commerce into industrial clusters. The province actively cultivates and upgrades cross-border e-commerce industrial parks, focusing on securing orders and expanding markets through this channel.

During the first half of the year, Wuhu-Xuancheng Airport handled over 5,000 tons of freight, facilitating rapid customs clearance for cross-border e-commerce and high-end manufacturing goods. The China-Europe freight train has fully implemented its "fast rail customs clearance" model, while combined road-rail transport broadens export channels for mechanical and electrical products. All water transport ports across the province now operate under a unified "intermodal connection and discharge" supervision system, reducing corporate customs procedures by 50% and cutting costs for bulk commodities and complete vehicle exports by 30%. 

Foreign trade is a crucial driver of national economic development. To optimize and upgrade goods trade and enhance its momentum through quality supply, it is essential to continuously expand new growth areas such as services trade, green trade, and digital trade, thereby promoting the integrated development of domestic and foreign trade. 

Source: ANHUI NEWS