In May, the first-quarter foreign trade report cards of cities across the country were released one after another, and Wuxi became a “dark horse.”
From January to March this year, Wuxi’s foreign trade import and export exceeded the 200 billion yuan mark for the first time, reaching 230.72 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.9%, and the quarterly growth rate hit the highest in the past five years.
Among them, exports were 165.29 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 32.3%, ranking among the top ten export cities in the country for the first time.
In the debugging workshop of a head-embodied intelligent robot company in Wuxi Binhu District, technicians are conducting factory inspections, and overseas orders have been scheduled until July.
In the Jiangyin Comprehensive Free Trade Zone, the heavy trucks of Envision Energy Co., Ltd. drove to the port carrying wind turbine cabins and hubs. In the first quarter, the total export volume of wind turbines and hubs reached US$25.48 million, a year-on-year increase of 2.73 times.
Driven by AI, Wuxi’s industry with computing power as its core is developing rapidly.
Integrated circuit exports increased by 49.3% year-on-year, and computer parts exports surged 3.9 times. Together, the two drove the city’s export growth by 24.6 percentage points.
As one of the birthplaces of China’s integrated circuit industry, Wuxi has the only integrated circuit industry chain in the country, with more than 600 upstream and downstream companies gathered together, and the industry scale exceeds 250 billion yuan.
On May 6, the first phase of the Wuxi Computing Equipment Industrial Park project officially started, with an estimated annual output value of 30 billion yuan.
Wuxi Xuelang Computing Power Center has built a “Yangtze River Delta Super Computing Power Cluster” to make computing power more “inclusive”.
In addition, the demand for electricity and energy storage brought by the AI wave has also caused Wuxi’s exports of photovoltaic products, lithium batteries, wires and cables to increase significantly. The city’s exports of mechanical and electrical products reached 131.11 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 40%.
In the field of robotics, Wuxi also performed well.
At the 139th Canton Fair, Wuxi’s Magic Atom humanoid robot attracted the attention of global buyers.
Qiuzhi Technology has realized the export of embodied intelligent robots, and its products are in demand in Asian, European and American markets.
In the first quarter, Wuxi exported 663 industrial robots, with an export value of 80.978 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 162.2%. The export of all types of intelligent equipment doubled.
Wuxi has a profound accumulation in the field of embodied intelligence. Wuxi companies are behind the UBTECH humanoid robot, the “Tiangong” full-size humanoid robot, and the world’s first explosion-proof humanoid robot.
The provincial major project Kuaisang Robot Global Headquarters Base has been put into operation, and the provincial-level Embodied Intelligent Robot Innovation Center has been launched. Wuxi is making every effort to build a complete industrial chain for humanoid robots, striving to exceed 30 billion yuan in industry scale by 2027.
In the complex external environment, Wuxi Foreign Trade has demonstrated strong resilience.
In the first quarter, imports and exports to major trading partners generally increased, with imports and exports to countries co-building the “Belt and Road” reaching 113 billion yuan, accounting for “half” of the city’s total import and export value.
Jiangyin Port has achieved “point-to-point” direct connection with Europe’s core trade hub, Wuxi International Mail Exchange Bureau has been put into operation, and Xishan District has expanded and upgraded its “cross-border e-commerce + industrial belt + overseas warehouse” model.
This year, Wuxi will actively explore the markets of RCEP and Belt and Road countries, continue to optimize the port business environment, and inject new momentum into the high-quality development of foreign trade.
