Urumqi, July 7 -- Xinjiang's land border stretches for more than 31,5600 kilometers, and among the majestic mountains, there are more than <> passages to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and other neighboring countries. Merchants from different countries gathered at the port, bringing grain and oil from Kazakhstan, cigarettes from England, sausages from Russia, perfumes from France. When they left, their bags were filled with small household appliances made in Zhejiang and medical equipment produced in Guangdong.

Nowadays, a single "channel trade" is no longer enough to meet the "good appetite" brought by Xinjiang's high-quality economic development, and in the ever-changing port area, open platforms such as the International Border Cooperation Center, Comprehensive Bonded Zone, and Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Experimental Zone "rise from the ground", promoting the transformation of Xinjiang Port from "channel economy" to "industrial economy".

Border people's mutual market and cross-border e-commerce "fly high"

Drip, drip, drip... Walking into the cross-border e-commerce sorting and clearance center of Xinjiang Alashankou Port Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone, several international freight trucks stopped in front of the warehouse, and several forklifts entered and exited several times on the warehouse operation platform to carry the stacked goods in the warehouse. After 12 to 15 days of exiting through the Alashan Port, they will land in Belgium, Germany and other European countries.

Workers are sorting out cross-border e-commerce parcels. Photo by La Xiaofei

"This is a batch of medical devices sent from Guangdong to Belarus, after the goods enter the comprehensive bonded zone, go through the warehousing procedures, and then go to the warehouse of the customs clearance center for reloading, sealing, customs declaration, and outbound, and a batch of cross-border e-commerce goods can be completed in as fast as three hours." Zhang Shenshan, head of the market operation department of Alashankou SDIC Group, said that the customs clearance center is currently settled in 24 e-commerce companies, with an average of more than 20 trains per day, and the goods cover clothing, equipment, electrical appliances and other categories.

Data show that in the first half of this year, cross-border e-commerce at Alashan Port exported a total of 1450.24 million parcels, completing a trade volume of 16.77 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.3%.

In the Silk Road Cultural Commodity City at the Baktu Port in the Tacheng region of Xinjiang, goods from Russia, Kazakhstan and other countries are dazzling, and the shelves are full, and tourists enter the store from time to time to select goods.

In the Bhaktu Port Silk Road Cultural Commodity City, Kazakh citizens are shopping. Photo by La Xiaofei

"As the first pilot port for the transformation and development of border people's mutual market in Xinjiang, Bhaktu Port has built infrastructure such as the Silk Road Cultural Commodity City and the inspection and transaction library. In the first half of this year, more than 1400,1 vehicles of bulk commodities were imported from the port and the border residents of Kazakhstan, with a trade volume of 25 million yuan, and 16000,<> border residents participated. Chen Weilong, member of the Party Working Committee and deputy director of the Management Committee of the Tacheng Border Economic Cooperation Zone, said.

Landing processing and industrial extension "go hand in hand"

As large trucks loaded with imported agricultural materials such as oil sunflower and grain produced in Kazakhstan entered the country from the Baktu port, and after being inspected and released by customs staff, they drove into the Tacheng landing processing plant area, and enterprises enjoying certain duty-free preferential treatment carried out landing processing, and the border residents and enterprises benefited from each other, and the competitiveness of the product market was also enhanced.

Chen Weilong said that the Tacheng area, with the Bhaktu Port and the Border Economic Cooperation Zone as the carrier, concentrated on building a 40-square-kilometer pilot zone pilot development zone, and vigorously developed industries such as landing processing of agricultural and sideline products, new energy equipment, import and export assembly and processing. Up to now, 63 enterprises have been signed in the pilot development zone of the pilot zone, and a number of projects such as wind power equipment manufacturing and small household appliance manufacturing have been completed and put into operation.

A wind power equipment manufacturer in the Tacheng area. Photo by La Xiaofei

At a noodle processing company in Alashankou City, wheat brought in from the port is sent to the flour mill, where it is packed and delivered to the consumer's table.

The person in charge of the company said that with the location advantage of the Alashan Port close to Kazakhstan's main grain-producing areas, and the functional policy of the comprehensive bonded zone that is not restricted by import trade quotas, the company purchases 50,<> tons of wheat from Kazakhstan every year and stores it into the comprehensive bonded zone, and makes flour and noodles in the park for domestic resale.

The commissioning of the project reflects the superposition effect of the park's location, resources and policies, and is the epitome of the transformation of Alashankou Port from a "channel economy" to an "industrial economy". Alashankou City has also accelerated the transformation of the port from "channel economy" to "industrial economy" through the development of "eight major industries" such as imported energy resource reserve processing, imported grain and oil landing processing, cold chain processing of livestock products, wind power photovoltaic new energy, etc.

Take the port as the center and radiate the coordinated development of the surrounding areas

In the Alashankou Comprehensive Free Trade Zone, a cross-border e-commerce industrial park covering an area of 372 acres and a total investment of 10 billion yuan has sprung up. The reporter saw at the scene that the main body of several huge buildings had been completed, and the workers were finishing the work.

A corner of the Alashankou Cross-border E-commerce Industrial Park that will be delivered soon. Photo by La Xiaofei

It is reported that the park will be delivered in August this year, the first phase of the plan to build a customs supervision center, international mail exchange bureau, collection and sorting warehouse, etc., focus on cross-border e-commerce retail direct purchase business, introduce cross-border e-commerce enterprises to settle in, form a cross-border e-commerce industry cluster, and create a logistics node base of "buying the world, selling the whole country, buying the whole country, and selling the world".

Cai Hu, member of the party group and deputy director of the Bozhou Development and Reform Commission, said: "The prefecture fully releases the function of ports, promotes the extension of port and comprehensive bonded policy functions to Bole City and Jinghe County, realizes the orderly and efficient flow of resources and elements, transforms port advantages into economic advantages, and transforms channel economies into hub economies, landing economies and industrial economies." ”

In the China-Kazakhstan Khorgos International Border Cooperation Center, tourism and trade are closely intertwined here, and the flow of people, logistics, capital and information is gathered here. Many tourists from inside and outside Xinjiang braved the scorching sun and took photos in the Guomen scenic area with great interest, most of them carrying goods purchased from the duty-free city. Kazakh merchants, on the other hand, are more pure, and all goods are tightly wrapped in an irregular sphere by tape, waiting to be returned to China by car for sale.

At the passage of the China-Kazakhstan Khorgos International Border Cooperation Center, tourists and Kazakh businessmen gathered. Photo by La Xiaofei

At the just-concluded first (2023) International Agricultural Products Exhibition in Yili Prefecture, Xinjiang, Chinese and Kazakh businessmen signed a total of 53 projects, with a signed amount of 263.7 billion yuan. A buyer from Kazakhstan Yi Gate told reporters that Khorgos is one of the closest Chinese markets to Kazakhstan, and it is very convenient to purchase goods in the China-Kazakhstan Khorgos International Border Cooperation Center, and the scope of doing business has become larger. "What I'm doing now is 'cross-border business.'" He shrugged and said jokingly. (End)