One year ago, almost no one would have believed that the title of the top foreign trade city in central and western China would change hands.
For the full year of 2025, Xi'an's total imports and exports stood at just 498.79 billion yuan, still far behind Chongqing's 800.68 billion yuan.
At that time, Xi'an was merely a quiet supporting player on the foreign trade map of central and western China. Chongqing had held the top spot in the region for years, with Chengdu close behind, while Zhengzhou carved out its own path as the dominant force in central China.
A year later, the script has been rewritten. In the first three quarters of 2026, Xi'an's total imports and exports surged to 764.413 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 115.5%, jumping from 19th place among cities nationwide in the same period last year to 12th, and ranking first among cities in central and western China.
Chongqing's foreign trade imports and exports for the same period totaled 749.8 billion yuan, up 29.1% year-on-year. In terms of growth rate, Chongqing can hardly be accused of not trying hard, but against 115.5%, it still falls slightly short.
Xi'an not only overtook Chongqing but also leapfrogged five cities in succession—Qingdao, Chengdu, Tianjin, Zhengzhou, and Hefei—with its growth rate ranking first among sub-provincial cities. The gap to the full-year trillion-yuan threshold is now less than 240 billion yuan.
Among the trillion-yuan foreign trade club, there is still not a single city from central or western China. Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou, Dongguan, Ningbo, Guangzhou, and Jinhua—all eight trillion-yuan foreign trade cities are located in the eastern region.
If Xi'an can sustain its momentum through the fourth quarter, the first trillion-yuan foreign trade city in central and western China will arrive.
But the real question worth asking is not "how did Xi'an climb up" but "what did it rely on to climb up, and can what it relied on hold firm."
Breaking down the structure, the answer is not complicated. In the first three quarters, exports of mechanical and electrical products reached 566.05 billion yuan, up 160.1%, accounting for 94.8% of the city's total export value. Among these, integrated circuits totaled 346.68 billion yuan, up 251%, accounting for 58.1% of the city's total export value.
In other words, chips make up the lion's share of Xi'an's export basket. Behind the chips are two companies. Samsung's Xi'an semiconductor plant is a critically important production base in the semiconductor memory chip sector. Micron also operates a large-scale packaging and testing base in Xi'an. Micron alone recorded imports and exports of 230.79 billion yuan in the first half of the year, up 224.1% year-on-year.
In 2026, memory chips entered an upward cycle, with prices and shipment volumes rising in tandem, and Xi'an happened to be standing right in the middle of this round of repricing. Xi'an's surge is essentially the result of a chip being repriced within the global pricing system.
Open corridor advantages are also coming into play. In the first three quarters, the China-Europe Railway Express (Xi'an) operated 4,560 trains, up 2.4% year-on-year. The land port and airport facilitate the transportation of raw materials and finished products, while the customs clearance convenience of the comprehensive bonded zone minimizes time costs. An inland city without sea access or border proximity has pieced together a foreign trade corridor using railways and runways.
It is worth noting that Xi'an's rise to the top does not mean Chongqing has regressed, nor does it mean a fundamental reversal has occurred in the foreign trade landscape of central and western China. Chongqing's foreign trade fundamentals are laptops and automobiles. Changan and Seres are seeing rising overseas penetration rates, and laptop exports are also benefiting from the spillover effects of memory price increases.
Xi'an's overtaking is more of a breakthrough at a single point. It relies on one city's extreme explosive power in an extremely narrow track, rather than a systematic elevation of the overall competitiveness of foreign trade in central and western China. Once the chip shipment cycles of Samsung and Micron fluctuate, Xi'an's foreign trade will sway accordingly.
The two companies place manufacturing operations in Xi'an while keeping technological decisions and brand premiums in their home countries, so stability depends on the parent companies' global calculations.
Xi'an is well aware of this. The city's 15th Five-Year Plan outline has already proposed cultivating high-potential future industries tailored to local conditions with precision, including biomanufacturing, hydrogen and nuclear fusion energy, embodied intelligence, and sixth-generation mobile communications.
The trillion-yuan threshold lies just ahead. Crossing it would make Xi'an the first trillion-yuan foreign trade city in central and western China, breaking the long-standing monopoly of eastern cities over the trillion-yuan foreign trade club. This label carries weight—international logistics corridors, port functions, and foreign investor confidence would all get a boost.
What to rely on to hold firm after crossing the trillion-yuan mark is the real test. The answer does not lie in the upward phase of the memory cycle, but in whether Xi'an can transform the geographic concentration of manufacturing links into depth in research and development, supporting facilities, and local supply chains.
Comments