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Text | Kaifeng

Foreign trade is a barometer of economic development.

In the first half of this year, the total value of China's foreign trade imports and exports reached 21.17 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.1%, setting a record high for the same period in history and becoming an important support for stabilizing the economy.

Some places are growing, some places are adjusting, and the regional foreign trade pattern is undergoing tremendous changes.

Recently, Hefei Customs released data showing that in the first half of this year,AnhuiThe total value of import and export of goods was 396.78 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.4%.Imports and exports, exports and imports all rank first in the central region.

This means that Henan, which has been the top foreign trade province in central China for 12 consecutive years, may be overtaken by Anhui this year.

Behind this,Geography and IndustryThe result of the double change.

01

How did Anhui’s foreign trade catch up?

More than 20 years ago, Anhui was an unknown "little transparent province" with almost no presence in the country, let alone foreign trade.

However, more than 20 years later, Anhui not only once jumped into the top 10 economic provinces, but also made a comeback in foreign trade, surpassing many economically developed provinces and ranking first in central China.

Behind this, in addition to collective participationYangtze River DeltaIn addition to the help brought by Anhui, more importantly,new energyAn advance bet on the “new three” foreign trade items, namely automobiles, lithium batteries, and photovoltaic products.

The automobile industry is not only the biggest highlight of Anhui's industrial rise, but also the biggest contributor to its foreign trade reversal.

In the first half of this year, Anhui's exports of automobiles (including chassis) and spare parts totaled 56.74 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23.8%, driving the province's exports by 4.5 percentage points.

In an era dominated by traditional fuel vehicles, the automobile manufacturing industry was concentrated in traditional industrial provinces such as Guangdong, Shanghai, Chongqing, Jilin, Hubei, and Beijing.

But in the new energy era, with the help of Chery and bottom-fishingNIO, introductionBYD, Anhui has become a leading automobile manufacturing province and one of the main sources of electric vehicle exports.

Anhui's automobile production reached 2.491 million units, up 48.1% year-on-year, accounting for 8.3% of the national total. Among them, the production of new energy vehicles reached 868,000 units, up 60.5% year-on-year, accounting for 9.1% of the national total.

The cars produced in Anhui not only serve the domestic market, but are also exported in large quantities overseas.

Data shows that in 2023, Anhui exported 1.147 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 80.1%, accounting for 23.4% of the national total, ranking second in the country.

It is worth mentioning that the layout of Anhui's automobile industry is not dominated by the provincial capital, but is widely distributed in various cities and counties, driving the common development of the regional economy.

At present, Anhui has gathered seven vehicle manufacturers including JAC Group, Chery, NIO, and Volkswagen Anhui, forming a "dual-core" drive of Hefei and Wuhu, and multiple automobile parts characteristic industrial clusters in Anqing, Xuancheng, Chuzhou, Ma'anshan and other places.

Anhui regards the automobile industry as the "first industry" and has formed aNon-ferrous metalsMainly industrial structure.

Last year, Anhui's total industrial revenue exceeded 5 trillion yuan for the first time, ranking 7th in the country and 1st in the central and western regions, becoming a veritableThe largest industrial province in the Midwest.

02

Henan's foreign trade is mainly affected by the fluctuations caused by the global transfer of the electronics industry.

More than 10 years ago, when the electronics industry first moved to the central and western regions, Henan, with its population and location advantages, became the biggest beneficiary.

Foxconn settled in Zhengzhou and quickly became an importantappleMobile phone production base, and driveHenan becomes the second largest province in China for mobile phone manufacturing, second only to Guangdong, which is home to leading companies such as Huawei, Honor, OPPO, and vivo.

peak period,Zhengzhou produces half of the world's iPhones, and most of it is exported overseas, thus driving a surge in foreign trade.

Local media once bluntly stated that the reason why an inland province that is not on the border, not by the sea, and not by the river can rank among the top 10 provinces in foreign trade in the country is due to the support brought by "the world's largest Apple mobile phone production base."

However, mobile phone processing is a labor-intensive industry, which is strongly attracted by globalization and demographic dividend, but alsoIt will shift as the demographic dividend fades and the geopolitical landscape changes.

Today, under the influence of various factors, Apple’s mobile phone industry chain has begun to reconfigure globally, and the concept of “Made in India” has spread like wildfire, which naturally led to the impact on the original factory production capacity and foreign exports.

Currently, the proportion of iPhones produced in India has increased to 14%.JPMorgananalyze,By 2025, Apple's iPhone production in India will account for 25% of its global total production capacity.

After a series of twists and turns, Apple is changing its "Foxconn dependence" and gradually allocating production capacity toLuxshare Precision, Wistron and other foundries, so as to disperse the risks as much as possible.

This series of operations has hit the central province the hardest. From January to May this year, Henan exported a total of 11 million mobile phones, a year-on-year decrease of 52.6%, which can be regarded as the biggest drag on foreign trade.

actually,The local government has already responded to the "Foxconn addiction".

On the one hand, we will establish a complete electronic information industry chain and say goodbye to our sole dependence on Foxconn and Apple mobile phones.

At present, Zhengzhou has gathered more than 600 electronic enterprises above designated size, forming emerging industrial chains such as smart terminals, computing terminals, and smart sensors, aiming to build a trillion-level electronic information industry cluster.

On the other hand, efforts are being made to foster new industries, with new energy vehicles being the focus of development.

In 2023, BYD's largest and highest-capacity vehicle production base was officially put into production in Zhengzhou. In that year, it produced more than 200,000 vehicles and achieved a production value of 33.47 billion yuan. This year's production value is expected to exceed 150 billion yuan.

With the support of vehicle manufacturers such as SAIC, Yutong, and FAW, Zhengzhou's new energy vehicle production is expected to exceed 700,000 units, driving automobile production to exceed 1.4 million units, and the overall industry scale will exceed 400 billion yuan.

It can be said that inIn addition to mobile phone manufacturing, Zhengzhou is reshaping new pillar industries.

With the help of the automobile industry, Zhengzhou's industrial added value increased by 13% year-on-year in January-May, making it the biggest contributor to stabilizing the economy.

Therefore, as long as new industries can emerge, we will not be afraid of the relocation of traditional industries or the impact of short-term fluctuations.

03

How do inland provinces become major foreign trade provinces?

In the era of traditional foreign trade, whoever was close to the port was close to the international market. This is the logic behind the dual rise of foreign trade and industry in coastal cities.

Now, whenIndustrial TransferBecome the general trend and ownDomestic and international dual circulationThe central and western regions, which are important fulcrums with population advantages and super-large-scale market advantages, have become the recipients of gradient transfer.

Industry moving westward, is the most spectacular industrial phenomenon in the past 10 years.

A large number of electronic companies have moved from the eastern coastal areas to the strong provincial capitals in the central and western regions, with Zhengzhou, Hefei, Chengdu, Wuhan and Xi'an being the biggest beneficiaries.

FromThe support of the "infrastructure maniac" should not be underestimated.

With the rapid development of major infrastructure such as high-speed railways connecting all cities, highways connecting all counties, airports in all cities, and artificial canals, as well as the emergence of China-Europe freight trains and air logistics hubs, inland areas have changed their past locational disadvantages and transformed themselves into an open frontier.

With the help ofChina-Europe ExpressElectronic products from Chengdu and Chongqing can be transported by rail through Central Asia to Europe, without having to travel thousands of kilometers from Shanghai Port,Guangzhou PortWaiting for the sea.

With the help ofAir Logistics, Zhengzhou’s high value-added electronic products such as mobile phones are marketed around the world with the help of the “Air Silk Road”, and Zhengzhou was approved to become the first batch of the country’s only airport-type national logistics hub, which is not unrelated to this.

Anhui, which connects the east and the west, the south and the north, not only has a Yangtze River port, but is also deeply integrated into the Yangtze River Delta railway network, making full use ofRiver-sea transport, sea-rail transport, Jianghuai transportThe comprehensive advantages provide support for the growth of foreign trade.

Thanks to the westward migration of industries and rapid infrastructure construction, a number of major foreign trade provinces and cities in the central and western regions have come from behind and become leaders in inland opening up.

The top 10 provinces in China's foreign trade were originally dominated by the eastern region, but now three seats are occupied by the central and western regions, including Sichuan, Anhui and Henan.

andTop 30 Chinese Foreign Trade CitiesOriginally, coastal cities were the only ones that stood out, but now there are also strong provincial capitals such as Chengdu, Wuhan, Hefei, Zhengzhou, Changsha and Xi'an.

Of course, the impact of geopolitics, industrial transfer, and technological revolution is still fermenting. It is worth paying attention to who can ultimately secure the position of the largest foreign trade province in central China.