杭州外贸规模实现十年翻番！2024年杭州通过海关跨境电商平台出口规模继续居全省首位

This article focuses on the latest development of Hangzhou's foreign trade, which has doubled over the past decade and maintains steady growth. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. In 2024, Hangzhou's total import and export volume reached 854.94 billion yuan, up 6.4% year-on-year and 107.1% from 2015. Both total imports and exports and exports hit record highs. Exports have recorded double-digit growth for six consecutive months since July 2023, and the full-year growth rate outpaced the average of Zhejiang Province and the whole country, demonstrating strong resilience in exports.

2. Hangzhou's foreign trade shows clear structural optimization. Exports of new quality products are growing rapidly, new business models such as cross-border e-commerce lead the country, private enterprises have become the absolute main force, and expansion into emerging markets has delivered outstanding results. Growth of trade with BRI partner countries, ASEAN and other markets far outpaces the overall growth rate, indicating strong overall vitality in Hangzhou's foreign trade.

Hangzhou's foreign trade development has released multiple signals favorable for brand operation, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Consumption trends and product opportunities: Exports of products related to new quality productive forces are growing strongly. Growth rates of high-tech products, security products, and electric vehicles all far outpace the overall export growth rate. Specialized and sophisticated brands that produce unique new products account for a large share of total exports, meaning brands that lay out technology-integrated product tracks will enjoy larger growth space.

2. Market layout opportunities: Traditional core markets including the EU and the US maintain steady growth, while emerging markets such as BRI partner countries, ASEAN and Latin America see far faster growth. Brands can diversify their market layouts to spread risks and capture growth dividends in emerging markets.

3. Channel opportunities: Hangzhou ranks first in Zhejiang Province in cross-border e-commerce export volume. Brands can expand direct-to-overseas sales via cross-border e-commerce channels. The high proportion of private local brands in Hangzhou also reflects that the city's foreign trade business environment is friendly to local native brands.

The development of Hangzhou's foreign trade has brought multiple clear opportunities for sellers, with key insights sorted as follows:

1. Track opportunities: Exports of new quality products are growing strongly at present, with growth rates of high-tech products, security products, and new energy electric vehicles leading by a large margin. Sellers operating these categories can leverage Hangzhou's industrial advantages to expand export scale and unlock greater growth space.

2. Market opportunities: In addition to traditional mature markets in Europe and North America, trade with emerging markets including BRI partner countries and ASEAN has achieved double-digit growth. Sellers can tap into new growth by expanding into these emerging markets, while import sellers can also seize opportunities from the fast import growth of the Latin American market.

3. Environmental advantages: Hangzhou's overall foreign trade growth rate consistently outpaces the average of Zhejiang Province and the whole country. It ranks first in the province in cross-border e-commerce export volume, the number of foreign trade entities grew by 9% continuously, and the policy environment is friendly with relatively controllable risks, meaning new sellers face lower entry barriers and less resistance when entering the market.

The development of Hangzhou's foreign trade points out direction for manufacturing factories and brings clear business opportunities, with key insights as follows:

1. Production adjustment direction: Overseas demand for high-tech products, security products and electric vehicles is growing extremely fast. The export volume of electric vehicles has more than tripled, with total value growing nearly 2.5 times; security product exports grew 9.9% in 2024, the fastest pace since 2022. Factories can adjust their production and R&D direction to match this demand.

2. Business opportunities: Specialized and sophisticated factories with unique strengths perform outstandingly in exports. The 198 national-level "little giant" specialized and sophisticated enterprises in Hangzhou account for 19.2% of total exports of similar enterprises in Zhejiang Province. Technologically advanced specialized and sophisticated factories enjoy clear advantages when expanding export business.

3. Transformation enlightenment: Hangzhou ranks first in Zhejiang Province in cross-border e-commerce export volume. Factories can lay out cross-border e-commerce channels to connect directly with overseas demand, expand sales channels, and secure more orders by leveraging Hangzhou's scale advantages in foreign trade.

The rapid growth of Hangzhou's foreign trade has brought substantial business opportunities for service providers, with key insights as follows:

1. Industry development trend: Hangzhou's foreign trade has doubled over a decade, and maintained 6.4% growth in 2024. The number of enterprises with actual import and export performance grew by 9% to 18,000. As the overall foreign trade market continues to expand, demand for supporting related services also grows continuously.

2. Core customer pain points: A large number of private foreign trade enterprises, cross-border e-commerce sellers and specialized and sophisticated manufacturing enterprises need supporting export services. Enterprises expanding into emerging markets need supporting services adapted to BRI partner countries, ASEAN and other markets, while new quality product export enterprises require professional supply chain and customs clearance services.

3. Business layout direction: Service providers can layout their business around exports of high-tech products and new energy products, cross-border e-commerce business, and the foreign trade demand of private enterprises, with a focus on developing supporting services for emerging markets to capitalize on the industry's growth momentum.

Hangzhou's foreign trade development points out clear investment attraction and operation direction for platforms, with key insights sorted as follows:

1. Market demand: Hangzhou has a large scale of foreign trade entities, with 18,000 enterprises having actual import and export performance, among which 17,000 are private enterprises. There is also a large number of cross-border e-commerce export sellers, and the number of foreign trade entities continues to grow, leading to very strong demand for export platforms, supply chain service platforms and cross-border e-commerce platforms.

2. Investment attraction direction: Platforms can prioritize attracting high-tech enterprises, specialized and sophisticated "little giant" enterprises, new energy vehicle-related enterprises and private cross-border sellers. These entities grow fast in exports, boast strong operational vitality, and contribute large growth increments.

3. Operation direction: Platforms can build targeted service segments for emerging markets, deploy supporting functions serving BRI partner countries, ASEAN and Latin American markets, capitalize on the growth momentum of exports driven by new quality productive forces, optimize platform business structure, and hedge risks from over-reliance on a single market.

Hangzhou's practice of doubling foreign trade over a decade provides a typical sample for research on foreign trade transformation and upgrading, with core research focuses as follows:

1. New industrial trends: New quality productive forces have become the core driving force for improving foreign trade competitiveness. Hangzhou ranks first in Zhejiang Province in high-tech product export volume, with its share continuing to rise. New quality products such as security products and electric vehicles grow rapidly in exports and have become the core source of foreign trade incremental growth, making it worthwhile to study how new quality productive forces drive foreign trade growth.

2. New structural changes: In terms of foreign trade entity structure, private enterprises account for over 90% of total volume and have become the absolute main force, with their share still rising continuously; In terms of new business forms, cross-border e-commerce export volume maintains a leading position and has become an important growth pole for exports; In terms of market structure, traditional markets grow steadily while emerging markets grow faster, forming a diversified supporting pattern.

3. These new changes and new trends provide fresh cases for research on the transformation, upgrading and high-quality development of local foreign trade in China, with high research value.