Foreign trade is an important indicator to measure a city’s openness level and industrial vitality.
In 2025, in the face of multiple challenges such as the complex and volatile external environment and rising uncertainty in international trade, Zhenjiang’s foreign trade will still maintain a steady growth trend and deliver a report card of “improving quality while maintaining stability and improving structure.”
According to Zhenjiang Customs statistics, in 2025, Zhenjiang’s foreign trade import and export value reached 107.55 billion yuan, reaching a new record high in scale, with a year-on-year growth of 3.7%.
While consolidating its scale advantage, Zhenjiang’s foreign trade continues to optimize its industrial structure, product levels and development momentum. A number of high-end manufacturing and specialty industries continue to release their potential, promoting the development of foreign trade in a “new” direction.
“One ship, one policy” accelerates the export of high-end equipment to the sea at “Zhenjiang speed”
On January 23, the Zhenjiang section of the Yangtze River was cold and windy.
Next to the dock of Jiangsu Dajin Heavy Industry Co., Ltd., a 40,400-dwt bulk carrier that is about to be exported quietly berths.
Zhenjiang Customs officers boarded the ship to conduct on-site inspections. From material supervision to health quarantine, all links were connected in an orderly manner.
“For newly built ships, we implement ‘one-stop’ quarantine inspection and supervision to achieve ‘one boarding, one completion.’” Chen Guotao, chief of the Transportation Vehicle Supervision Section of Zhenjiang Customs, said that by establishing a joint assessment and information exchange mechanism with border inspection, maritime and other departments, the time of a new export ship in port can be reduced by more than 20 hours, and the overall export time can be shortened by more than 30%.
The shipbuilding and marine engineering equipment industry is Zhenjiang’s advantageous and characteristic industry, and it is also one of the “four groups and eight chains” industrial chains that are focused on building.
Currently, Zhenjiang’s major shipyards have orders on hand until 2029.
Focusing on the characteristics of intensive orders and tight delivery cycles, Zhenjiang Customs provides front-line services, goes deep into the production line of enterprises, accurately implements “one enterprise, one policy” and “one ship, one policy”, and provides appointment inspection services based on enterprise production nodes to help enterprises minimize production time and logistics costs.
“We have extensively applied intelligent construction systems such as automatic driving systems in production, and at the same time focused on green environmental certification. Many technical indicators have reached leading domestic and international levels.” Wang Youjun, general manager of Jiangsu Dajin Heavy Industry Co., Ltd., said that in January this year alone, the company had exported and delivered 3 ships.
Data show that in 2025, Zhenjiang will export a total of 2.81 billion yuan of dry bulk multi-purpose ships, general cargo ships and other types of ships, a year-on-year increase of 1.7 times. High-end equipment is becoming an important support for the optimization of Zhenjiang’s export structure.
“Annual Inspection” Releases Dividends
Chemical companies are moving lightly to expand markets
It is almost the New Year, and the production area of Jiangsu Thorpe Group, the world’s largest acetic acid monomer factory, is busy. Industrial glacial acetic acid, ethyl acetate and other export products are being loaded in an orderly manner and shipped to export regions such as Southeast Asia and North America.
“In the past, every batch of exports was subject to on-site inspection, but now there is a centralized random inspection once a year, and batch-by-batch inspections are avoided throughout the year. Logistics efficiency has been greatly improved.” Talking about the changes brought about by the “batch inspection” reform of export hazardous chemicals, Chen Zhilin, general manager of Jiangsu Thorpe Group, was deeply touched.
As one of the leading companies in Zhenjiang’s chemical industry, Thorpe Group exports approximately 420,000 tons of hazardous chemicals annually, with large export batches per month and a fast pace.
Zhenjiang Customs, on the basis of fully assessing the enterprise’s quality management system and risk level, guided the enterprise to apply the “batch inspection” supervision model reform, and significantly reduced the frequency of on-site inspections while ensuring safety.
The chemical industry is an important foundation and engine of Zhenjiang’s industrial system, contributing about 10% of the total direct and indirect economy every year.
Focusing on the characteristics of the industry, Zhenjiang Customs continues to deepen the reform of the supervision model. It not only promotes the pilot of “batch inspection” of hazardous chemicals, but also implements the first batch of national differentiated conformity assessment pilots for dangerous goods packaging use identification. A total of 14 companies participated in the two batches, saving companies more than 10 million yuan in costs throughout the year.
At the same time, Zhenjiang Customs promotes smart supervision models such as “remote local inspection” for specialty industries such as bamboo, wood and grass products, chemicals, and promotes the transformation of supervision from “on-site errands” to “online collaboration” to help enterprises carry out light operations and steadily expand international markets.
“Inspection and release as soon as it arrives” Imported food runs out of customs clearance “acceleration”
Recently, a batch of multi-flavor fruity drinks from Taiwan, China, with a value of 411,000 yuan, passed the Zhenjiang Customs document review and “remote inspection” and received an electronic version of the “Inbound Goods Inspection and Quarantine Certificate” and successfully entered the domestic market.
“Now after the goods arrive at the warehouse, they can be released as soon as the same day.” Chen Yan, general manager of Zhenjiang Shuoda International Logistics Co., Ltd., told reporters that the significant improvement in customs clearance efficiency allows companies to more calmly adjust the pace of purchase during the pre-holiday import peak period, and also effectively reduces logistics costs.
In view of the short shelf life and high transportation requirements of beverage products, Zhenjiang Customs implements “one product, one policy” supervision, opens green channels, provides “7×24 hours” appointment clearance, priority inspection and other facilitation measures, and actively applies the “remote local inspection” and “1+N” inspection operation mode of pre-packaged food to achieve “inspection and release upon arrival”, and the overall inspection efficiency is increased by 50%.
Currently, the development of foreign trade is accelerating the transformation from “struggle for scale” to “struggle for quality and efficiency”.
Focusing on key industries such as agricultural machinery, ships, glasses, and automobiles, Zhenjiang Customs has focused on reform and innovation to improve customs clearance efficiency while maintaining a safe bottom line, providing strong support for companies to stabilize orders and expand markets.
The relevant person in charge of Zhenjiang Customs said that the next step will be to closely follow the actual development of local industries, continue to deepen the innovation of supervision models and service measures, promote policy dividends to reach market entities more accurately, help more “Made in Zhenjiang” to enter the international market, and inject continuous momentum into the high-quality development of the city’s foreign trade.
