At the 2026 Cross-border E-commerce Development Conference, the expert group of the China Association for Trade in Services released the “2025 China Cross-border E-commerce Annual Development Report.”
The report shows that Hebei has created a very distinctive “industrial belt + cross-border e-commerce” development model, with outstanding results in exporting characteristic industries overseas. Cross-border e-commerce in Hebei Province has shown rapid growth in recent years and has become an important engine for the transformation and upgrading of the province’s foreign trade.
The report closely follows the three core main lines of policy change, technological innovation, and business upgrades, systematically reviews the development of China’s entire cross-border e-commerce industry chain in 2025, focuses on evaluating the competitiveness of the five core entities of platforms, comprehensive pilot zones, industrial belts, brand sellers, and service providers, and simultaneously releases a series of authoritative industry lists.
The report focuses on Hebei as a typical case in the northern region for in-depth analysis.
Hebei relies on six major cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones and 333 characteristic industrial clusters to create an “industrial belt + cross-border e-commerce” development model.
In 2025, the trade volume will be at a high level, and its contribution to the province’s foreign trade will continue to increase.
Hebei’s characteristic industries have achieved outstanding results in going overseas.
Baigou Luggage Live E-commerce Center was selected as a national-level innovation case, forming an “industrial belt + live broadcast” model.
Qinghe Cashmere Industrial Belt’s cashmere yarn export volume in the first quarter of 2025 was US$100 million, a year-on-year increase of 20.82%, and the unit price of end products increased significantly by 73.57%, showing that cross-border e-commerce promotes brand upgrades and high value-added transformation.
Industrial belt-driven development is the core feature of Hebei’s cross-border e-commerce development, and various regions rely on local manufacturing advantages to create characteristic export clusters.
For example, Shijiazhuang focuses on clothing, home furnishings and food, Tangshan focuses on ceramics, steel and equipment manufacturing, Langfang focuses on furniture and small household appliances, Qinhuangdao focuses on food and agricultural products, and Xiongan New Area develops plush toys and plastic packaging.
Hebei Province’s express delivery business volume will increase from 4.14 billion pieces in 2021 to 11.96 billion pieces in 2025, an increase of nearly 2.9 times in five years.
In 2025, Hebei products with an average daily value of 1.3 billion yuan will be sold at home and abroad through mail delivery channels.
Express delivery business revenue will increase from approximately 34.5 billion yuan in 2021 to 68.21 billion yuan in 2025, ranking sixth in the country in revenue scale.
The report shows that the number of 5G base stations in Hebei Province will increase from approximately 53,000 in 2021 to 200,000 in 2025, achieving continuous 5G network coverage in all districts and cities in the province, the main urban areas of Xiongan New District, and key towns, and the construction of dual gigabit networks has entered the forefront of the country.
The construction of new infrastructure such as smart ports, smart highways, and smart logistics has been accelerated.
The construction of 5G networks in Tangshan Port, Huanghua Port, Qinhuangdao Port and other ports has accelerated, and the digital and intelligent transformation of port infrastructure has been in-depth.
Key projects such as the intelligent construction of Beijing-Harbin Expressway, Huanghua Port Smart Port, and Xiongan Digital Road have been advanced, and the level of logistics information interconnection in the province has been improved.
In 2025, the development of generative AI in China will show typical explosive characteristics.
Hebei Province’s Internet penetration rate has long been higher than the national average, with a strong manufacturing base, active small and medium-sized enterprises, and strong demand for enterprise-level AI applications.
The penetration rate of AI applications in enterprises in Hebei Province has rapidly increased from 1% in 2021 to 35% in 2025. In the field of cross-border e-commerce, AI translation, intelligent customer service and content generation have become standard.
The report believes that cross-border e-commerce in Hebei Province is at a critical stage of transformation from scale expansion to quality improvement. Relying on the solid manufacturing foundation, the gradually improving comprehensive pilot zone network, and the location dividend of the coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei, it has formed a development pattern with industrial belts as the foundation, logistics channels as the link, and policy innovation as the guarantee.
