Amidst headwinds such as the continued escalation of international geopolitical risks, China’s foreign trade growth remains extremely resilient.
On April 14, data released by the General Administration of Customs showed that in the first quarter of 2026, China’s total import and export value of goods trade reached 11.84 trillion yuan, exceeding 11 trillion yuan for the first time in history.
This resilience was also fully demonstrated at the 139th Canton Fair.
There are more than 210,000 pre-registered buyers for this Canton Fair, and 290 leading purchasing companies have confirmed to participate in the fair, a year-on-year increase of 30%.
Behind this is the dual advantages of Chinese goods and services in terms of quality and cost, which have attracted an influx of global buyers.
Han Chunlan, head of corporate solutions and growth at Airwallex (hereinafter referred to as “Airwallex”), revealed that despite the impact of escalating international geopolitical risks and the rise of trade protectionism, China’s foreign trade development still presents three major new trends: First, relying on its advantages in manufacturing capabilities, industrial supporting facilities, infrastructure and professional talents, China is shifting from a “single production base” to a “high value-added and key link hub”;
More and more Chinese companies are “going overseas” through technology, branding, and platform capabilities, providing software services, digital content, and overall solutions to the world, promoting trade in services and digital trade to become new growth points in the field of foreign trade. Third, the demand for Chinese goods and services in emerging market countries in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia continues to grow. Chinese companies are also establishing closer economic and trade ties with more emerging markets through more flexible business models and localized operations in overseas markets.
However, there are still many pain points and blockages in the cross-border trade payment and settlement process, which invisibly restricts Chinese companies and overseas buyers from strengthening trade cooperation and business exchanges.
Among them, difficulties in opening accounts and settling foreign exchange make overseas purchasers feel “powerless” in expanding the procurement of Chinese goods and services; it is difficult to establish a local payment system for small currencies and the lack of efficient solutions for currency exchange has also made Chinese overseas companies feel more pressure to expand into more emerging markets.
“Without global account services, it is difficult to do global business.” Shi Wenyi, vice president of Ant International and CEO of Wanlihui, said, “The current core demands of enterprises going overseas have been upgraded from ‘whether the money can be returned safely’ to a comprehensive need for compliance, localized operation capabilities and efficient allocation of global funds.
Demand, especially small, medium and micro enterprises, is in urgent need of full-link support.
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Many cross-border payment platforms are actively building targeted financial solutions to further unblock various pain points and blockages in B2B cross-border trade payment and settlement links, and help Chinese companies and overseas buyers better participate in global trade.
For them, to build effective solutions, the focus is not only on improving the cross-border payment experience, but also on a new round of upgrades of cross-border payment financial service infrastructure.
At a time when Chinese goods and services are favored by the world, difficulties in opening accounts and settling foreign exchange have become a major constraint for overseas buyers to improve their ability to purchase Chinese products and services.
There are three main reasons behind this: First, banking institutions have extremely strict requirements for the review of account openings for foreign legal entities, resulting in a lengthy account opening process; second, during the fund settlement process, banks have to spend a lot of time reviewing due to differences in license formats, trade contract formats, etc. of enterprises in various countries, which slows down the settlement of related trade funds.
During the Canton Fair, some foreign legal entities that participated in the Canton Fair for the first time to purchase Chinese goods and services encountered problems such as payment delays in the sample procurement process due to not completing account opening or slow settlement of funds, which invisibly affected the scale of their purchases and the execution of purchase orders with Chinese export companies.
Han Chunlan told reporters that the difficulty of opening an account and settling foreign exchange has also brought additional compliance operational pressure to overseas buyers.
In response to these problems, many cross-border payment institutions have begun to innovate financial solutions.
During the Canton Fair, Kongkongyunhui began to provide foreign exchange settlement services to overseas buyers, helping overseas buyers and other foreign legal entities to build a compliant, transparent, and clear cross-border payment system with clear capital links, further reducing the operation time of account opening and settlement.
As the scale of purchasing goods and services in China continues to expand, overseas buyers have also put forward new requirements for the efficiency of account opening and fund settlement.
Han Chunlan said that in response to the new demands of overseas buyers in opening accounts and settling foreign exchange, cross-border payment institutions such as Kongkonghui should make full use of one-stop financial technology platforms and flexible compliance product designs to reconstruct the cross-border payment experience.
Relying on the advantages of Chinese products and services, more and more Chinese companies are actively going overseas to further expand their business in overseas markets.
João Del Valle, co-founder and global CEO of EBANX, a large Brazilian cross-border payment platform, said that in order for Chinese overseas companies to gain a foothold in more emerging markets, they need to first establish a local currency collection and payment system that covers mainstream local payment methods, and do a good job in risk control and response to the risk of local currency exchange rate fluctuations in emerging markets.
However, they are really worried about how to quickly establish a local payment system for small currencies and an efficient exchange operation process.
In order to seize the business opportunities of Chinese-funded enterprises going overseas, many cross-border payment institutions are establishing small-currency collection and payment systems + efficient exchange services. However, it is not easy to do this work well.
Firstly, cross-border payment institutions need to rely on global financial partners and local licenses to continue to expand and open up local clearing networks; secondly, they need to improve currency exchange pricing and liquidity management capabilities; thirdly, they need to provide customized and professional exchange rate risk management solutions and tools to overseas enterprises.
Take Shenzhen Wancheng Technology Co., Ltd. as an example. This company, which specializes in 3C digital products, has rapidly expanded into emerging markets such as the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa in recent years.
Its general manager Fang Zefu admitted that it faces many problems, so the most important aspects are fund security and compliance and low collection costs.
Han Chunlan told reporters that local collection and payment services in small currencies have become an indispensable cross-border payment and settlement tool for overseas companies as they expand into more emerging markets.
João Del Valle revealed that EBANX is helping many Chinese companies going overseas to access localized payment systems in different emerging markets, and will also provide localized payment services for more types of companies going overseas in the future.
Many overseas buyers participating in the Canton Fair are also very interested in the new combination of small-currency local payment + entrusted exchange services. When they expand business in emerging markets, they also face exchange rate risks and local currency collection and settlement challenges.
In the process of expanding into emerging markets, overseas companies may also encounter problems such as lagging local financial infrastructure and imperfect cross-border payment systems.
Deng Guobiao, founder and CEO of B2B cross-border payment service platform
As Chinese overseas companies enter more emerging markets, local collection and payment of small currencies + efficient exchange services are facing new challenges.
In Han Chunlan’s view, as China’s economic and trade exchanges with more emerging markets continue to deepen, more Chinese-related companies will actively go overseas in the future.
Looking to the future, cross-border payment institutions still need to work hard in many aspects to build a more efficient, secure and inclusive cross-border payment financial infrastructure, so that both Chinese and foreign companies can do long-term business with peace of mind in the current global trade environment of heightened uncertainty.
