By Luo Shanshan, People’s Daily
Nestled along China’s northern border, Inner Mongolia autonomous region boasts a unique geographical advantage: it spans northeast, north and northwest China, connects eight provincial-level regions within the country, and serves as a vital gateway linking China to Europe and Asia.
Recently, China’s State Council issued an overall plan for China (Inner Mongolia) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ), bringing the total number of China’s pilot FTZs to 23 and further improving the overall layout of its FTZ network.
Yuan Xiaoming, assistant minister of commerce, stated that the overall plan supports the Inner Mongolia FTZ in leveraging its geographical advantages to fully utilize both domestic and international markets and resources. It prioritizes seven key areas, including developing major trade hubs, enhancing bilateral investment quality, deepening domestic and international connectivity, and facilitating the cross-border flow of production factors.
The blueprint outlines 19 reform measures, such as upgrading goods trade structures and strengthening international logistics services. Its vision is to build the FTZ into an information exchange hub, a transportation and logistics center, a platform for factor and resource allocation, a hub for scientific and technological innovation, and an industrial cooperation center in key fields, thereby linking domestic and international markets while driving regional growth.
Efforts will focus on developing northern international transport corridors to expand global connectivity. In 2025, cargo throughput at Inner Mongolia’s land ports reached 132 million tons, up 8.3 percent year on year and exceeding 100 million tons for three consecutive years.
The overall plan proposes upgrading port infrastructure, strengthening international logistics services such as aviation, postal delivery, and China-Europe freight trains, and exploring smart new cross-border transport corridors, including those featuring autonomous driving.
The FTZ is expected to enhance the development of an open economy and help strengthen China’s domestic economic cycle. In 2025, Inner Mongolia handled 9,557 China-Europe freight train trips, a year-on-year increase of 16.9 percent, accounting for nearly half of the national total. There remains significant room to improve its role in serving the domestic economy and upgrading from a “corridor economy” to a “hub economy” and an “industrial economy.”
The overall plan calls for deeper reforms to integrate domestic and foreign trade, promoting development in border areas, and improving the well-being of people in border and ethnic regions.
It will also promote coordinated regional development and mutually reinforcing domestic-international connectivity.
The FTZ will accelerate implementation of the land-sea intermodal “express rail clearance” model, facilitating resource sharing between Inner Mongolia’s Manzhouli Port and coastal ports including Dalian Port and Qinhuangdao Port, so as to optimize logistics networks.
Cross-border cooperation with neighboring countries will expand in agriculture, energy, and ecological governance to build transnational industrial chains. Tailored institutional innovations will strengthen Belt and Road cooperation in infrastructure connectivity, standards alignment, and cultural exchanges, better positioning itself as China’s bridgehead for northern opening up.
“In 2025, Inner Mongolia’s total foreign trade grew 6.4 percent, and notably, border residents’ mutual trade surged by 65.4 percent year on year. These figures demonstrate a solid foundation for developing Inner Mongolia into a highland of opening up along the border,” said Luo Qing, director general of the Department of Commerce of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.
The plan includes high-value institutional reforms to upgrade goods trade, revitalize services trade, and foster innovative development of border residents’ trade.
Inner Mongolia is rich in natural resources. How can these advantages be transformed into dividends for modern industrial development?
As a national leader in agriculture, with grain output exceeding 40 billion kilograms for two consecutive years and ranking first nationwide in beef, mutton, and milk production, Inner Mongolia is solidly positioned as a “granary,” “meat base,” and “dairy hub.” It aims to build a major national base for agricultural and livestock products. The overall plan outlines measures to develop eco-friendly agriculture and animal husbandry, promote green food certification, and introduce high-quality breeds and resources.
In the energy and minerals sector, Inner Mongolia leads the country in installed capacity for new energy, coal production capacity, total power generation capacity, electricity transmitted to other regions, and reserves of 20 key minerals. Its technically exploitable wind energy resources account for about 57 percent of the national total, while solar resources make up about 21 percent.
The overall plan proposes improving policies for the consumption and utilization of green electricity, promoting trading of green electricity certificates, and refining standards for equipment recycling to upgrade the energy sector.
At the same time, Inner Mongolia is actively fostering future-oriented industries. As a national hub in China’s integrated computing power network, the region led the country in both total computing power and intelligent computing capacity in 2025.
The overall plan outlines pilot initiatives including building edge computing centers, conducting AI large model training and applications, and expanding green computing scenarios. These will enable the FTZ to deliver fast, efficient computing services to a wider market.
Furthermore, Inner Mongolia is exploring new growth areas such as biomanufacturing and developing new quality productive forces tailored to local conditions, turning its geographic strengths into opening up advantages and policy benefits into real economic momentum.
