In 2024, Gansu Province has thoroughly implemented the requirements for improving the quality and stabilizing the quantity of foreign trade, focusing on stabilizing the scale and optimizing the structure of foreign trade. From January to November 2023, the total value of imports and exports in the province reached 53.39 billion yuan, marking a year-on-year growth of 20.2%, 15.3 percentage points higher than the national average, ranking fourth in the country. This indicates a positive trend of quality improvement and steady growth in the province's foreign trade.

To further promote sustainable and healthy development of foreign trade, Gansu Province has formulated the "Action Plan for Leveraging the Belt and Road Initiative to Promote the Quality and Efficiency of Gansu's Foreign Trade" and issued the "Several Measures of the Gansu Provincial Department of Commerce to Support the Stable Development of Foreign Economic and Trade Enterprises." These initiatives clarify the province’s medium- and long-term foreign trade development goals and responsibilities, and introduce an innovative "1+5+N" foreign economic and trade work mechanism, which strengthens policy coordination, collaboration, and service support.

In a landmark move, Gansu Province has incorporated foreign trade indicators into the key performance evaluation system of municipal and regional governments. It has also developed a detailed foreign trade assessment and evaluation method, ensuring a three-tiered coordination mechanism for foreign trade evaluation and scheduling at the provincial, municipal, and county levels. This approach, which includes "bi-weekly adjustments, monthly reports, quarterly evaluations, and annual assessments," has fostered a positive environment in which local governments closely monitor targets and strive for progress.Optimizing Industrial Layouts Leveraging open platforms such as comprehensive bonded zones and economic development zones, Gansu Province has focused on attracting key enterprises in sectors like new energy, new materials, biomedicine, fine chemicals, and modern agriculture, which drive import and export activities. By continuously unleashing the potential of foreign trade entities, the province has accelerated the export growth of integrated circuits, fine chemicals, equipment manufacturing, and agricultural products. Capitalizing on the approval of the Jinchang National Economic and Technological Development Zone's foreign trade quality and efficiency enhancement project (Batch 3), the province has expanded the value chain of the non-ferrous metal industry, increasing imports of raw materials such as copper and nickel, and expanding exports of new materials and lithium batteries, thus enhancing export efficiency.

Enhancing Service Quality and Efficiency Gansu Province has established a "one enterprise, one policy" contact and service mechanism for key foreign trade enterprises. Regular assessments of issues such as customs clearance, market expansion, and logistics are conducted, with relevant provincial and municipal departments working together to resolve challenges faced by enterprises. Collaborative efforts have been made to innovate customs, tax, and foreign exchange supervision, deepen the application of the international trade "single window," and strengthen international commercial legal services. Additionally, 2,650 certificates of origin were issued to enhance the facilitation of international trade. Cooperation with China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure) and PICC (People's Insurance Company of China) has been reinforced to reduce export insurance premiums, increase maximum claim amounts per transaction, and expand the coverage and scale of export credit insurance, thereby reducing risks for export enterprises.

Fostering Competitive Advantages Efforts have been made to upgrade the foreign trade transformation and upgrading bases, consolidating and expanding the export advantages of integrated circuits, petrochemical equipment, and "Gansu-flavor" agricultural products. Gansu Province is accelerating the cultivation of new drivers for foreign trade and supporting the development of wind turbine generators, photovoltaic products, new energy vehicles, and used cars, in order to tap into the markets of Belt and Road countries and continuously improve export quality.

The foreign trade transformation and upgrading bases in Lanzhou City (new materials) and Lanzhou New Area (petroleum equipment) have been further enhanced, successfully attracting large foreign trade supply chain enterprises such as Xinhua Metallurgical and Xiamen International Trade. Seven provincial-level foreign trade comprehensive service enterprises have been recognized and cultivated, with ongoing efforts to promote the transition from foreign trade supply to self-operated export. Key projects, including the Jin Chuan Group’s copper and cobalt mining project in Africa, the nickel resource merger project in Indonesia, and the multi-metal tailings comprehensive utilization project of Baiyin Group in Peru, have been coordinated and promoted, encouraging enterprises to actively engage in international economic and trade cooperation.