The outbreak of Anhui’s new energy foreign trade has become a fact.
In 2025, the “three new items” of new energy vehicles, lithium batteries, and photovoltaic products will export a total of 101.83 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.1 times; in the first quarter of 2026, the export volume will reach 33.06 billion yuan again, a year-on-year increase of 91.7%, of which electric vehicle exports soared 382.2%.
Such a rapid growth is not only a test of the effectiveness of past policies, but also throws the question to the future: After such rapid progress, how will follow-up policies be used to ensure that the advantages are sustained and the momentum does not diminish?
Dismantled from different perspectives, the focus of subsequent policies will focus on several core dimensions, each of which points to the key transformation from “scale expansion” to “quality and resilience improvement.”
From the perspective of overseas enterprises, the core of the policy is “going deep” and “holding together”.
For companies like Chery and Sungrow that have already sailed overseas, follow-up policies are no longer satisfied with simple export subsidies, but will push them to shift from “going overseas through trade” to “going overseas through manufacturing” and “going overseas through ecology.”
The “Hui Dong Global” overseas operation is the main focus. The plan aims to connect enterprises with global resources by cooperating with 60 overseas institutions and holding economic and trade activities.
Its support measures are very specific. For example, it supports Sungrow to invest 230 million euros in Poland to build a factory with an annual output of 20GW photovoltaic inverters and 12.5GWh energy storage systems to achieve localized production in Europe.
The “20 Measures” to promote the high-quality development of export-oriented enterprises provide a package of precise support, including direct funding subsidies, loan interest subsidies, etc.
The key idea is to “gather the industrial chain to go overseas”, guiding leading companies such as Chery and Guoxuan Hi-Tech to drive upstream and downstream supporting companies to go global in a coordinated manner and improve the overall ability to resist risks.
Feedback from enterprises also confirms this. Yu Zhuyun, chairman of Zhonghuan New Energy, suggested building a one-stop service platform for new energy policies and increasing credit and risk protection to promote the industry chain to go global.
Shifting to the dimension of industrial clusters, the policy focus is on “making up for shortcomings” and “climbing high-end”.
The outbreak of Anhui’s new energy foreign trade is based on the “2+2+N” export-oriented industrial cluster strategy.
The focus of subsequent policies is how to make this cluster stronger and move up the value chain.
Legislative guarantees and strengthening chains are the basis. The country’s first provincial-level special regulations for the new energy automobile industry, the “Regulations on the Development of New Energy Automobile Industry Clusters in Anhui Province,” have been implemented, providing legal protection from seven aspects, including innovation leadership and industrial chain improvement.
In terms of specific implementation, the policy focuses on creating a “half-hour supply circle.” For example, Feixi County has gathered nearly 200 industrial chain companies, and the localization rate of core components has exceeded 80%, and has introduced key component suppliers such as Fuyao Glass and Junlian Automotive Electronics.
Technological breakthroughs and cutting-edge layout are the future, and policy support has been targeted at core technological bottlenecks such as automotive-grade chips and solid-state batteries.
For example, Wuhu Chery has broken through 600Wh/kg solid-state battery technology, while Xuancheng is laying out cutting-edge photovoltaic technologies such as heterojunction and perovskite stacked cells.
For the lithium battery and photovoltaic industries, Xuancheng City is anchored as the “Heterojunction Photovoltaic Capital of China”. The output value of the new energy industry will exceed 85 billion yuan in 2025, forming a full industrial chain from equipment to components.
From the perspective of open platforms and logistics, the policy pursuit is “cost reduction” and “global connectivity”.
No matter how good the product is, if it cannot be shipped or the transportation cost is high, its competitiveness will be greatly reduced.
Follow-up policies have been unprecedented in opening up international logistics channels and expanding diversified markets.
China-Europe freight trains have become the “main artery”. In the first quarter of 2026, China-Europe freight trains (Hefei) operated 220 trains, a year-on-year increase of 41.37%, and the shipment value was 2.555 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 120%.
Policy innovation lies in its “tailor-made”: promoting the “railway express” model to improve customs clearance efficiency; launching the first special train for new energy complete vehicle cages and “door-to-door” road-rail combined transport of photovoltaic modules, reducing logistics costs by 20% compared with highways.
Market expansion is more accurate and data-based, and policies no longer generally encourage “going global” but are based on customs data to accurately support the fastest-growing markets.
In the first quarter of 2026, Anhui’s electric vehicle exports to the EU surged by 964.4% (including a 20-fold increase to Italy), and exports to ASEAN increased by 439.1%; lithium battery exports to the EU also increased by 220.5%.
On the basis of this data, the “Hui Dong Global” action organized companies to go to Singapore, Malaysia, Uzbekistan and other countries to carry out targeted economic and trade docking, and achieved remarkable results.
After comprehensive judgment, the overall context of Anhui’s new energy foreign trade follow-up policy is already clear: its core is to shift from the “supporting the horse” policy that pursues explosive growth to the “accompanying the whole process” system that supports high-quality development.
On the enterprise side, policies have shifted from providing subsidies to building platforms and optimizing services to support their overseas roots; on the industrial side, policies have shifted from pursuing scale to strengthening chains and conquering core technologies; on the logistics and market side, policies have shifted from smooth channels to smart and precise operations to reduce comprehensive overseas costs.
Behind this transformation is a profound understanding of the competitive landscape of the new energy industry.
The competition in the future will be competition across the entire industry chain and across the entire ecology.
Anhui’s follow-up policies are trying to build an industrial ecosystem that cannot be easily replaced through localized supporting facilities, technological innovation and open platform construction.
Of course, challenges remain.
Industry analysts pointed out that Anhui still needs to focus on breaking through core technology bottlenecks such as car-grade chips.
Compared with strong foreign trade provinces such as Jiangsu and Guangdong, Anhui still lags behind in terms of high-end parts and components and the influence of international brands.
The focus of subsequent policies also lies in how to achieve breakthroughs in these shortcomings.
The final integrated judgment is that the “explosion” of Anhui’s new energy foreign trade is driven by policy factors, but it is also the result of the collision between industrial foundation and market opportunities.
If follow-up policies can continue to deepen in the above-mentioned dimensions and promote the industry from “going overseas” to “entering the sea” (penetrating into the local market), and from “manufacturing” to “intelligent manufacturing”, then the current outbreak will not just be a wave, but may be transformed into a vast blue ocean that can support world-class industrial clusters.
