Continuously improving the business environment at ports of entry, Xiamen has been selected as a pilot city for the Special Action on Trade Facilitation for five consecutive years.

　　People's Daily Online, Xiamen, March 22 (Yu Nailiu) Recently, Xiamen was once again selected as a pilot city for the "2026 Cross-Border Trade Facilitation Special Action," marking five consecutive years of participation since its first selection in 2022.

　　It is reported that the "2026 Cross-Border Trade Facilitation Special Action" is jointly organized by the General Administration of Customs along with the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Development and Reform Commission, and 24 other departments (units). The initiative focuses on optimizing and upgrading goods trade, vigorously developing service trade, innovating digital trade, and promoting green trade. It proposes a new round of facilitation policies and measures to enhance the quality and efficiency of foreign trade, including 29 key measures such as deepening innovation in import and export customs supervision models, optimizing regulatory services for new foreign trade formats, improving cross-border logistics efficiency, strengthening smart port construction, promoting interconnection of standards and rules, and enhancing comprehensive services for enterprises. This year, the initiative expanded from 25 cities to 45 cities, adding 20 new participants.

　　"A total of 258 tasks under the special action for promoting cross-border trade facilitation have been implemented and completed, achieving practical results," said staff from the Planning and Construction Bureau of the Xiamen Free Trade Zone Administrative Committee. As the leading unit for promoting cross-border trade facilitation in Xiamen, the Xiamen Free Trade Zone Administrative Committee has leveraged systematic and integrated reform and innovation in the free trade pilot zone. It has actively collaborated with Xiamen Customs, the Municipal Bureau of Commerce (Port Office), various port units, and shipping enterprises to jointly promote cross-border trade facilitation, contributing to the construction of an international first-class port business environment and achieving remarkable results.

　　For example, Xiamen's cross-border trade business environment ranks among the top benchmark cities nationwide. In the national "Cross-Border Trade Business Environment Evaluation for Container Cargo at Maritime Ports," Xiamen has won the highest star rating for five consecutive years. Xiamen's port business environment ranks among the top nationwide, and the National Port Management Office has repeatedly published special reports promoting Xiamen's cross-border trade facilitation practices. Xiamen's cross-border trade indicators have consistently ranked first in the province for many years. The city has established a nationally leading local version of the international trade "single window," launched a digital port platform, and pioneered the construction of an aviation electronic cargo information platform.

　　Notably, since the establishment of the Xiamen Free Trade Zone, the development, transformation, and upgrading of the Xiamen International Trade "Single Window" have been crucial in continuously promoting cross-border trade facilitation. The functionality of this window has extended from public services in the customs clearance domain to the entire chain of international trade management, achieving integrated development of customs, ports, shipping, and trade. This has laid a solid foundation for smart port construction and become an important component of Xiamen Port's high-quality development: "Through the creation of a maritime transport 'single window' platform, Xiamen has integrated data from maritime affairs, customs, commerce, ports, and shipping enterprises, improving the entire chain of vessel entry and exit services. This saves enterprises approximately 150 million yuan in operating costs annually."

　　Moreover, in 2025, the Xiamen Free Trade Zone's case "Actively Participating in the Formulation of International Maritime Transport Rules to Promote Chinese Standards Going Global" was selected as one of the sixth batch of "Best Practice Cases" for national free trade pilot zones. The "Innovative Integrated Service System for Lithium Battery Exports" was included in the National Development and Reform Commission's "National Exchange on Optimizing the Business Environment."

　　In actively carrying out the cross-border trade facilitation special action, the Xiamen Free Trade Zone Administrative Committee has collaborated with Xiamen Customs and other departments to focus on the development needs of cross-border trade. It has continuously optimized customs supervision and comprehensively upgraded cross-border trade facilitation. While persistently improving the business environment in the Xiamen Free Trade Zone, it has also injected strong momentum into stabilizing and enhancing the quality of Xiamen's foreign trade, helping the city transition from a "major foreign trade city" to a "strong foreign trade city."

　　According to data from Xiamen Customs, Xiamen's foreign trade scale has shown a continuous upward trend in recent years. In 2025, the city's total import and export value reached 960.02 billion yuan (imports: 419.26 billion yuan, exports: 540.76 billion yuan), a 3% increase compared to the previous year, setting a new historical record for overall import and export scale. In the first two months of this year, the city's total import and export value reached 158.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.7% (exports: 87.39 billion yuan, up 20.1% year-on-year; imports: 71.21 billion yuan, up 8.7% year-on-year), accounting for 50% of Fujian Province's total import and export value during the same period, achieving a "good start."

　　In 2025, the Xiamen Free Trade Zone's import and export value accounted for 85.8% of the total import and export value of the Fujian Free Trade Pilot Zone. The combined import and export value of Xiamen Haicang Port Comprehensive Bonded Zone and Xiangyu Comprehensive Bonded Zone accounted for 54.4% of the Xiamen Free Trade Zone's import and export value and 94.2% of Fujian Province's comprehensive bonded zone total value. In the General Administration of Customs' 2025 national performance evaluation of comprehensive bonded zones, these two bonded zones were both classified as Category A nationwide, ranking 8th and 14th respectively, achieving their best historical results.

　　"Continuously deepening reforms to stimulate development vitality and benchmarking against advanced international and domestic standards," said a relevant official from the Xiamen Free Trade Zone Administrative Committee. Facing bottlenecks in cross-border trade, the Xiamen Free Trade Zone has consistently emphasized empowering the port business environment through integrated reforms. Since Xiamen became a pilot city for the special action, the Administrative Committee has actively collaborated with Xiamen Customs, the Municipal Bureau of Commerce (Port Office), and other relevant units to introduce a series of targeted policy measures. These measures have further optimized processes, reduced costs, shortened timeframes, and improved efficiency, effectively enhancing Xiamen's cross-border trade facilitation level and continuously optimizing the port business environment. Moving forward, the city will continue to innovate customs-local cooperation models, coordinate the implementation of Xiamen's cross-border trade facilitation special action, and advance integrated reforms through projects. It aims to build a stable, transparent, and predictable port business environment, expand the coverage and influence of the digital port platform, further boost foreign trade development momentum, promote stable foreign trade scale and optimized structure, and support high-quality port development. "We will earnestly implement the '3+1' city development framework to advance transformation and upgrading, focus on the city's central agenda, and take high-quality development as the theme to continuously enhance cross-border trade facilitation, helping Xiamen become a key node city in the new development pattern."