In 2026, my country’s foreign trade will welcome favorable policies again.
At a press briefing held by the General Administration of Customs on January 15, Xie Fang, deputy director of the National Port Management Office, announced a new batch of 25 cross-border trade facilitation measures to be replicated and promoted across the country. These measures are like a powerful “combination punch”, releasing stronger momentum to stabilize the volume and quality of my country’s foreign trade and create new advantages for opening up to the outside world.
Judging from the latest data released by the General Administration of Customs on the 14th, my country’s foreign trade performance in 2025 will be full of highlights.
The annual foreign trade import and export reached 45.47 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.8%, and the import and export with more than 190 countries and regions achieved growth.
Among them, the export of high-tech products and the export of “three new products” increased by 13.2% and 27.1% respectively, and there were more than 780,000 business entities with import and export records.
The high-quality development of foreign trade is inseparable from the continuous improvement of trade convenience.
Since 2018, the General Administration of Customs, together with relevant departments, has organized special actions to promote cross-border trade facilitation every year.
As of 2024, a total of 115 facilitation measures have been introduced.
From April to September 2025, 20 departments including the General Administration of Customs and the Ministry of Commerce launched a five-month special campaign to facilitate cross-border trade in 25 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing, in line with international advanced standards, and launched 29 pilot innovative policies and measures, with remarkable results.
The questionnaire survey showed that 98% of the enterprises were satisfied with the special actions, which fully demonstrated that my country’s port business environment is constantly being optimized.
These special actions have brought positive impacts in many aspects.
In terms of helping the market increase confidence, by expanding the pilot application of “two certificates in one” for imported motor vehicles, 460,000 certificates were issued, and work efficiency increased by more than 80%; during the special operation, 461.58 billion yuan was exported through market procurement trade, a year-on-year increase of 14.4%.
In terms of helping enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency, the policy dividends of active disclosure were released, and tax late payment fees were reduced and exempted by 20.961 million yuan for qualified enterprises; the pilot of the “first inspection before shipment” model for export LCL goods was actively expanded, which increased the overall efficiency of exports by 30% and reduced logistics costs by nearly 20%.
In terms of helping the business environment continue to improve, we will continue to optimize the visa-free policy and further expand the scope of visa-free countries, so that “China Travel” and “China Purchase” will continue to heat up.
The international trade “single window” has also realized electronic data exchange such as certificates of origin and inspection and quarantine certificates with 15 countries (regions).
The State Council executive meeting held on December 31, 2025, made arrangements and put forward new requirements for further promoting the efficient and smooth flow of cross-border logistics, optimizing the supervision of special commodities, supporting comprehensive bonded zones to carry out bonded inspection services, and improving the level of intelligent supervision services.
In order to implement the spirit of the meeting, after summary and evaluation, it was decided to replicate and promote 25 of the more mature policies and measures in 5 aspects across the country.
Specifically, it includes 7 measures to promote the efficient and smooth flow of cross-border logistics, 5 measures to support the development of new business formats and new models, 4 measures each to optimize the special commodity supervision model and improve the level of smart supervision services, and 5 measures to enhance the effectiveness of benefiting enterprises and convenience for the people.
As the new foreign trade format with the fastest development speed, the greatest potential and the strongest driving force, cross-border e-commerce has become an important trend in the development of international trade and a new driving force for China’s foreign trade development.
In order to help export enterprises solve the problem of capital turnover, cross-border e-commerce policies related to “tax refund upon departure and re-accounting after sale” for goods exported to overseas warehouses by cross-border e-commerce have shortened the tax refund cycle for enterprises and alleviated the pressure on capital turnover.
Chang Hui, a second-level inspector of the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said that the Ministry of Commerce will work with relevant departments to strengthen overall coordination, strengthen central and local coordination, create an institutional environment conducive to the development of new business forms and new models and an open, inclusive and fair development environment, and promote the healthy, sustainable and innovative development of cross-border e-commerce.
In addition, my country has also further promoted the construction of a “single window” for international trade. It has now built a “one-stop” comprehensive service platform that is connected to the system of 30 departments (units) and provides 1,010 services in 25 categories, including cargo declaration, inspection and quarantine, tax processing, export tax rebates, and cross-border e-commerce. It covers all major links in the entire process of international trade and helps enterprises achieve “one-stop service” across the entire chain of cross-border trade business.
