In 2025, the total import and export value of Anhui, a central province that is not close to the sea or border, will exceed 1 trillion yuan for the first time.
This is not only a milestone for Anhui, but also makes it the first province in central China and the ninth province in the country to have a foreign trade exceeding one trillion yuan.
From 545.15 billion yuan at the end of the “13th Five-Year Plan” to over one trillion yuan, the national ranking jumped from 13th to 9th in five years.
Many people are curious, why is it an inland province?
Behind this, the policy system with the “Hui Dong Global” overseas operation as the core is intertwined and exerting efforts from different levels.
From the perspective of enterprises going overseas, the policy directly “sets the stage” and “reduces costs.”
For Anhui’s foreign trade companies, policies such as “Hui Dong Global” allow the government to help them “go global” and “save money.”
On the one hand, the overseas operation organizes companies to participate in overseas exhibitions. In 2024, it will organize no less than 5,000 companies to go overseas to develop markets. In 2026, it will focus on organizing companies to participate in more than 50 domestic and overseas exhibitions.
This collective “going overseas to grab orders” model lowers the threshold and risks for individual companies to explore the international market.
For example, Hefei Bunuo Solar was able to sign an intended order of US$5 million at the Canton Fair, a year-on-year increase of 30%; Taihu County’s Jifeite Packaging Technology successfully expanded the Turkish and Russian markets with the help of policy support, and its exports increased by 30% in the first quarter.
On the other hand, policies reduce business operating costs through a series of subsidies and facilitation measures.
For foreign trade companies that take out domestic trade credit insurance, a premium subsidy of up to 1 million yuan will be provided; for qualified international product certification fees, 70% and a maximum of 3 million yuan will be supported.
In the logistics sector, differentiated highway tolls are implemented, toll concessions are given to ETC trucks, and gate fees are reduced for container ships passing through the Jianghuai Canal, which alleviates the capital and cost pressure of enterprises, especially small, medium and micro enterprises, in the early stages of market development.
From the perspective of industrial upgrading, policies are “guiding” and “focusing”.
The outbreak of Anhui’s foreign trade is a breakthrough in key industries guided by policies.
Anhui regards the automobile industry as its “primary industry” and provides unprecedented support.
Anhui’s automobile exports will reach 1.228 million units in 2025, ranking first in the country; in the first quarter of 2026, automobile exports will continue to surge by 118.8%, with export value reaching 45.08 billion yuan.
Wuhu has become the city that exports the most cars in the country, with exports accounting for 14.9% of the national total in the first quarter.
The leading company Chery Automobile has ranked first in the export of Chinese brand passenger cars for 23 consecutive years. With the help of policy-supported overseas platforms, it has established R&D centers and factories in Europe, achieving a leap from “selling products” to “localized operations.”
At the same time, policies have strongly driven the industrial structure to transform into high-tech fields such as the “New Three Things”.
In the first quarter of 2026, Anhui’s “three new products” (electric passenger vehicles, lithium batteries, and photovoltaic products) exported 33.06 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 91.7%.
Among them, the export of integrated circuits surged by 275.7%, and the export of Hefei’s high-tech products increased by 73.2%.
This growth is due to the long-term industrial cultivation policy and the institutional innovation of the free trade pilot zone.
From the perspective of mechanism guarantee, policies build a “system” and “ecology”.
Behind Anhui’s foreign trade exceeding one trillion yuan is a three-dimensional policy ecosystem from market development to industrial support to service guarantee.
Anhui has built a high-energy open platform matrix with the free trade pilot zone as the leader and coordinated efforts by national-level economic development zones, the “Haike Roundtable”, and the “Anhui Global” partnership program.
The performance of the Anhui Pilot Free Trade Zone is key. In 2025, it accounted for a small land area in the province and contributed 31.6% of the province’s import and export volume and 62% of the actual use of foreign investment.
In addition, commerce, customs, finance and other departments have joined forces to launch a series of integrated services.
The customs has launched a “one-time application, multiple use” pilot for the “Tax and Tax Notification” for new industries; in response to the “short-term, frequent and urgent” financing needs of small, medium and micro foreign trade enterprises, it has innovated a pure credit batch guarantee model and will provide more than 8 billion yuan in financing and credit enhancement through “credit guarantee loans” in 2024.
Wuhu Free Trade Zone has also innovated the “cross-border financing of overseas subsidiaries” model to solve the problem of overseas financing for enterprises.
Based on comprehensive judgment, policies such as “Hui Dynasty Global” have transformed Anhui’s disadvantages in the inland hinterland into advantages in developing high-end manufacturing and linking to the global market through the combination of “precision industrial guidance + systematic platform support + full-chain enterprise services”.
This model is based on industrial competitiveness, activating and amplifying Anhui’s advantages in automobiles, integrated circuits, photovoltaics and other fields; taking market diversification as the direction, vigorously exploring emerging markets; with private enterprises as the main body, it stimulates market vitality.
In the first quarter of 2026, the import and export of private enterprises accounted for 52.1% of the province’s total value, becoming the absolute main force.
Of course, this model also faces challenges. For example, traditional exports such as agricultural products need to transform into “selling brands”, companies’ overseas brand influence and localized operation capabilities need to be improved, and international logistics costs and risks need to be continuously addressed.
However, Anhui’s practice has proved that inland provinces can achieve “both quantity and quality” of foreign trade through forward-looking industrial layout and systematic opening-up policies, providing an “open economic development sample” that can be studied in depth for inland provinces in the central and western regions and even across the country.
