Back in 2018, cross-border e-commerce trade in Hunchun stood at just 43 million yuan. Fast forward to 2025, that figure had soared to 14.84 billion yuan, and by June 10 of this year, trade volume in the Hunchun Comprehensive Bonded Zone alone had already surpassed the 10 billion yuan mark. That represents a more than 300-fold surge over seven years.
This is not a business legend from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, or Shenzhen. It is the impressive cross-border e-commerce achievement of Hunchun, a small border city in Jilin Province. Neither a coastal hub nor a provincial capital, this unassuming northeastern town has carved out a remarkable path of upward mobility in the wave of the digital economy.
Located at the tri-border junction of China, Russia, and North Korea, Hunchun serves as a strategic pivot for the "Belt and Road" initiative's northward opening. Within a 200-kilometer radius lie several excellent ports of neighboring countries, with Russia's Posyet Port just 42 kilometers away and Zarubino Port 71 kilometers distant. Yet geographic position is merely the entry ticket. What truly accelerated Hunchun's growth is a combination of favorable policies and innovative models.
At the end of 2024, Hunchun Customs became the first in the three northeastern provinces to implement the "1210" bonded cross-border special area export model, which integrates cross-border e-commerce with bonded warehousing. This approach allows businesses to export goods in advance to the comprehensive bonded zone for bonded storage, benefiting from the "tax rebate upon entry" policy. This breaks the traditional barrier of export tax rebates only after goods leave the country, significantly shortening the capital recovery cycle for enterprises. From January to April this year, Jilin Province's "1210" export volume grew 4.4 times year-on-year, ranking first in Northeast China.
To address the pain points of fragmented cross-border e-commerce operations and cumbersome procedures, the Hunchun Comprehensive Bonded Zone has implemented a "Three-in-One" closed-loop management model, integrating data push, warehouse inspection, and customs checkpoint clearance. The highway port operates 7×10 hours, the railway port runs 7×24 hours, the bonded zone allows 24-hour access, and the cross-border e-commerce supervision center functions around the clock. Overall clearance time has been compressed to within 15 minutes, with a single-day maximum of 120,000 packages inspected and released.
The bonded logistics distribution center, which came into operation at the end of 2024, represents a total investment of 229 million yuan and features 3,200 square meters of standardized bonded warehouse space and a 5,400-square-meter professional cross-border e-commerce supervision center. Through digital upgrades, the cargo warehousing and turnover cycle has been reduced from 17 days to 7 days, boosting circulation efficiency by over 58%.
At present, enterprises within the Hunchun Comprehensive Bonded Zone have signed strategic agreements with major cross-border platforms including JD Global Sales, Russia's Ozon, and WB. The zone now serves more than 2,000 businesses and holds an inventory of 18,000 SKUs. It has become the fifth Cainiao International Certified Warehouse in China and the only Cainiao Russia-bound trunk logistics node city in Northeast China. Additionally, it hosts JD Global Sales' second collaborative stocking warehouse and an OZON FBP pre-positioned stocking warehouse nationwide. Over 500 cross-border e-commerce merchants from across the country have set up operations in the border warehouse, with total stocking value exceeding 300 million yuan, covering 12 major product categories. More than 50 domestic medium and large platform enterprises, including Xiaomi and Lenovo, have established a presence, offering products ranging from 3C electronics and daily necessities to auto parts.
Hunchun has also developed a dual-warehouse linkage system combining domestic border warehouse clusters with overseas public warehouses. Domestically, 90,000 square meters of border stocking warehouses seamlessly connect with the bonded zone's warehouses. Overseas, public overseas warehouses have been established in Moscow, Ussuriysk, and Novosibirsk, Russia, providing one-stop services for storage, distribution, and customs clearance. With this dual-warehouse linkage, delivery times to core Russian cities have been shortened to 10 to 15 days, saving approximately 10 days compared to traditional direct shipping models.
Several distinctive cross-border logistics routes have been launched. The country's first Cainiao Russia-bound bulk parcel special line enables efficient transport of large packages. The first cross-border TIR international highway route in Northeast China directly connects to Moscow and extends into Europe. A China-Russia railway postal route has cut delivery times for goods bound for Russia from 20 days to 5 to 15 days. As a result, per-batch operational costs for enterprises have dropped by over 30%.
The story of Hunchun serves as a footnote to the digital age. When the "1210" bonded model grants inland cities the same policy tools as coastal counterparts to compete on an equal footing, when digitalization compresses clearance times from days to mere minutes, and when the "border warehouse plus overseas warehouse" model transforms a remote small town into a cross-border logistics hub. Geographic disadvantages can be overcome, and inland regions can become frontiers of openness.
In 2025, Hunchun Comprehensive Bonded Zone's total import and export trade volume broke through the 10 billion yuan mark for the first time, reaching 16.65 billion yuan. The zone now ranks 65th among China's 173 customs special supervision areas, climbing 15 places year-on-year. From 43 million to 14.84 billion, a 300-fold increase over seven years. Hunchun has proven with hard data that a small border town can also become a major window of openness. This is not only a model for the revitalization of Northeast China but also vivid proof that "location" is being redefined in the digital era.
Image source: Hunchun Comprehensive Bonded Zone
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