On May 11, the 2026 Hunan (Huaihua) RCEP Economic, Trade and Investment Promotion Event & Hunan Foreign Trade Characteristic Industry Supply and Demand Matchmaking Conference kicked off in Huaihua City.
This global economic and trade investment event builds bridges with RCEP member states, domestic and foreign business associations, and overseas Chinese business leaders, pooling consensus on deepening cooperation, and jointly creating a new future of openness.
Land port brings out new opportunities
The Hunan-Guizhou and Zhijiang-Liuzhou railways intersect in Huaihua, which once witnessed a prosperous scene where streams of people and goods flocked to the city. However, landlocked and surrounded by mountains, the city was hindered in its march toward modernization.
In 2019, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the Master Plan for the New Western Land-Sea Corridor, positioning Huaihua as an important node city on the main corridor of “Chongqing-Huaihua-Liuzhou-Beibu Gulf”, the only one of its kind in Hunan Province.
In September 2020, during his inspection tour in Hunan, General Secretary Xi Jinping drew a magnificent blueprint of “Three Highs and Four News” for the province, encouraging Hunan to build a highland for reform and opening-up in inland areas.
Huaihua began to embrace the long-awaited new opportunities.
On September 13, 2021, relying on the New Western Land-Sea Corridor and the newly built Huaihua West Marshalling Yard, the largest marshalling station in southwest China, the construction of Huaihua International Land Port began.
In May 2022, the Hunan Provincial People’s Government issued the Implementation Plan on Deeply Integrating into the Belt and Road Initiative and Supporting the Construction of Huaihua International Land Port, endowing Huaihua with the new positioning and mission of “building a strategic gateway city for the New Western Land-Sea Corridor” and the sole ASEAN cargo consolidation center in the province, and clarifying that Huaihua International Land Port shall be built as a landmark project for Hunan to develop a highland for reform and opening-up in inland areas.
In July 2022, the CPC Huaihua Municipal Committee held the 3rd Plenary Session of the 6th Municipal Party Committee and made a decision to accelerate the construction of Huaihua International Land Port with the whole city’s efforts.
On July 22, 2022, Huaihua participated for the first time in the Inter-provincial Joint Meeting of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor held in Chongqing, officially becoming a member of the circle of friends of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor. The pattern of joint construction of the Corridor evolved from “13+1” to “13+2”.
In 2024, Huaihua International Land Port handled 1,009 trains, achieving the provincial target two years ahead of schedule. In 2025, Huaihua operated a total of 1,220 freight trains with ASEAN countries as destinations, ranking first among domestic inland ports in terms of the scale of cold chain trains. The vision of “reaching ports in 30 hours and ASEAN countries in 3 days” has become a reality.
In April 2026, the 5th Meeting of the Office of the Inter-provincial Consultative and Cooperative Joint Meeting of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor was held in Huaihua. As the host, Huaihua stood at the center of the “circle of friends” of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor for the first time.
Integrating into the New Western Land-Sea Corridor and building a highland for reform and opening-up in inland areas, Huaihua has advanced steadily with fruitful achievements.
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the city’s total foreign trade import and export volume increased by 6.7 times, with the growth rate ranking first in the province for three consecutive years; the number of actual foreign trade enterprises surged from 72 to 303; the foreign trade dependence rate rose from 1.09% to 5.12%, significantly enhancing the contribution of the open economy.
Living up to General Secretary Xi Jinping’s earnest instructions, Huaihua International Land Port has emerged with the momentum of the times, boasting 7 major international logistics corridors, 216 domestic and international transport routes, and a transport network covering 238 ports/stations in 72 countries/regions worldwide... An open pattern of “relying on dual corridors, connecting two oceans, and serving dual circulation” has been successfully established.
In 2025, Huaihua conducted foreign trade with 174 countries and regions worldwide.
Prioritizing development, economic and trade Cooperation scales new heights
Huaihua has addressed inland development bottlenecks through institutional opening-up, translated RCEP opportunities into cooperation momentum, and unfolded an open picture of “buying globally and selling globally”.
On May 8, in the production workshop of Hunan Rongjing Bamboo Industry Development Co., Ltd. located in the Industrial Development Zone of Huitong County, automated production lines were running at high speed.
Hunan Rongjing Bamboo Industry Development Co., Ltd. has innovatively adopted a development model of “base + physical production + export trade + overseas warehouse + cross-border e-commerce local stores”. It has set up overseas warehouses in Thanh Hoa of Vietnam and Bangkok of Thailand respectively, covering core Southeast Asian markets with vibrant e-commerce development and strong demand for bamboo products.
“In the past, direct delivery from China to Southeast Asia took 15 to 30 days. Now with stock pre-positioned in overseas warehouses, customers can receive goods within 1 to 3 days after placing orders, greatly improving logistics efficiency and customer satisfaction,” said Ma Jin, chairman of the company.
Huaihua connects ports across the country and ensures smooth flow of goods. Batches of local enterprises from Huaihua go global, while truckloads of Huaihua-made products sail across the seas. The RCEP has become a lucrative wealth corridor for Huaihua.
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Huaihua launched a total of 2,852 freight trains, representing an average annual growth of 191%. The port cargo throughput rose from 4.82 million tons in 2022 to 10.58 million tons in 2025. Leveraging major events including the Hunan RCEP Economic and Trade Expo and the Global Hunan Entrepreneurs Conference, Huaihua has boosted its trade volume with ASEAN and Africa by over 13 times and 10 times respectively.
Huaihua continues to introduce quality products from RCEP member countries and deepen opening-up and cooperation with them. Nowadays, durians, bananas and longans from Southeast Asia take the express logistics route and can arrive in Huaihua in as fast as 48 hours.
While advancing economic and trade cooperation, Huaihua has further upgraded the land port to extend the conveniences of the transportation hub to more enterprises.
On January 23, the Huaihua International Land Port Multimodal Transport Center was officially put into operation, realizing integrated road-rail-sea combined transportation and substantially cutting transportation time and costs for enterprises. On March 20, the Huaihua International Land Port Comprehensive Service Center was inaugurated, striving to provide professional service for enterprises.
“We have also launched an exclusive one-price package that integrates full-chain services including transportation, customs declaration and warehousing, cutting the logistics costs of enterprises in Huaihua and surrounding areas by more than 15%,” introduced Ran Yunfang, marketing director of New International Land-Sea Corridor Operation (Hunan) Co., Ltd. At present, goods from 23 provincial-level regions across China depart from Huaihua southbound to ASEAN and European countries.
Up to now, the Huaihua International Land Port has built 69 functional facilities including customs supervision sites, bonded warehouses for imported goods, supervised warehouses for exported goods and container consolidation centers, with a total warehousing area of 422,000 square meters completed and a smart cold chain logistics center in operation.
Enterprises thrive with efficient services. This year, Huaihua has thoroughly launched the “Enterprise Service Year” campaign, issued the Implementation Plan for Optimizing the Business Environment and Promoting High-Quality Development of Market Entities in Huaihua, proposed industrial-trade integration, key foreign trade enterprise attraction, innovative “enclave” actions, established and improved a comprehensive service mechanism covering large, medium and small foreign trade enterprises, and further advanced institutional opening-up in rules, regulations, management and standards.
“The business environment is getting better and better, and the government’s service awareness is growing stronger. Every project and every difficulty in our development can receive rapid response and resolution,” said Li Xiaohong, chairman of Hunan Jiahui Department Store Co., Ltd., with great enthusiasm. “This gives us more confidence to expand industrial scale and promote product exports in Huaihua.”
By the end of 2025, Huaihua had 448,600 market entities, including over 375 foreign-invested enterprises and 150 enterprises with actual foreign trade performance.
“Port-Industry-City-Tourism” envisions a new future
In December 2025, the 10th Plenary Session of the 6th CPC Huaihua Municipal Committee proposed to closely focus on the overall goal of striving to build a regional central city on the border of Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing, Guizhou and Guangxi, based on the two major geographical advantages of Huaihua as the intersection of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor and the Shanghai-Kunming Corridor, and the strategic junction of the rise of central China and the western development, fully stimulate the three major driving forces of deepening reform, expanding opening-up and scientific and technological innovation.
Assessing the situation and devising strategies, the CPC Huaihua Municipal Committee and the Municipal People’s Government accurately pointed out that the integration and mutual support of “port-industry-city-tourism” constitute the core engine and inevitable path for Huaihua’s high-level opening-up and high-quality development.
Recently, reporters saw at the production workshop of Mayang Senjia Luggage Co., Ltd. that all 9 production lines were fully staffed, with more than 260 workers busy making luggage and the constant whir of sewing machines.
“Previously, we exported to Southeast Asia and ASEAN countries via Guangzhou; now, through Huaihua International Land Port, transportation costs have been reduced by one-third,” said Man Linhua, chairman of Mayang Senjia Luggage Co., Ltd. In the first quarter of this year, the company achieved an export volume of 30 million yuan, more than doubling year-on-year.
Mou Xiaofeng, founder of Xianghuai Luggage, is a representative of returning entrepreneurs. Several years ago, recognizing the development opportunities of Huaihua International Land Port, he resolutely returned to his hometown to start a business. Today, his company has driven the agglomeration of more than 140 upstream and downstream enterprises, forming a complete luggage industrial chain. “Huaihua’s geographical advantages, the land port’s logistics strengths, and the care and attention of the municipal party committee and government are the greatest confidence for our enterprise’s development.”
To date, Huaihua has formed a “1+2+N” port-side industrial system led by luggage and leather goods, gathering 202 chain enterprises, with products exported to 104 countries and regions and cumulative exports reaching 1.4 billion yuan. Covering luggage production, raw material supply, logistics distribution, product design and other fields, a complete industrial chain has taken shape.
The opening capacity of the international land port continues to improve. Huaihua deeply aligns with the “13+2” cooperation mechanism of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor, actively promotes highway-railway-waterway multimodal transport, accelerates the construction of an AI land port, attracts 70% of the goods of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor to pass south through Huaihua for export, and achieves the “three one-thousand objectives (handling over 1,000 freight trains, reaching a cargo throughput of over 10 million tons, and achieving a total output value of over 100 billion yuan)” one year ahead of schedule.
The “5+10” modern industrial system is accelerating its development. Focusing on industrial chains such as luggage, leather goods and traditional Chinese medicine, Huaihua precisely supplements and strengthens chains, accelerates the cultivation of a number of 10-billion-yuan and billion-yuan key enterprises, and promotes traditional industries to “sprout new shoots” and emerging industries to “grow into big trees”. Data shows that in 2025, Huaihua’s GDP growth rate, fixed asset investment growth rate and residents’ income growth rate all ranked first in the province.
A new pattern of coordinated regional development is actively taking shape. Anchored by Hecheng-Zhongfang integrated development, Huaihua takes the initiative to align with major strategies such as the rise of central China and the Chengdu-Chongqing Twin City Economic Circle, deepens cooperation among border areas of Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing, Guizhou and Guangxi, and strives to build a regional commercial and logistics center, education and medical center, consumption and tourism distribution center.
The influence of cultural and tourism brands continues to rise. Huaihua deeply taps into the Wuxi characteristic cultural and tourism resources, fully integrates into the Greater Zhangjiajie International Tourism Zone, and continuously enhances the reputation and influence of the city.
Looking back on the journey, the rails of the international land port extend to the world, RCEP cooperation bears fruitful fruits, and the “5+10” modern industrial system is improving day by day. Every heartbeat of this city resonates with the national strategy.
As the curtain of RCEP rises and opportunities of the era come one after another, Huaihua embraces its best present. Riding the tide and sailing far, a brighter future is about to unfold here.
(Translated by Yang Hong)