Ningxia becoming an inland opening-up highland

In recent years, Northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region has made efforts to promote the strategic development of the Silk Road Economic Belt, continued to expand its opening-up to the outside world, and achieved new breakthroughs in the high-quality development of the inland open economy.

Since 2017, Ningxia's total import and export volume has reached 116.82 billion yuan ($17.2 billion), up by 4.1 percent over the previous five years.

Ningxia's imports from and exports to countries and regions along the Belt and Road have soared to a total of 33.13 billion yuan, accounting for more than 30 percent of the overall totals.

Ningxia has held five China-Arab States Expos, and seen a total of 1,024 economic and trade cooperation projects signed.

To date, Ningxia has carried out economic and trade exchanges and cooperation with 186 countries and regions, and established 156 enterprises in 35 countries and regions.

Driven by the construction of the Yinchuan Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone and the Yinchuan Free Trade Zone, Ningxia's inland open economy has gained momentum.

Ningxia's outbound investment area has extended from Europe and the United States to more than 40 countries and regions in Central Asia, West Asia and Africa.

In the past five years, the total actual use of foreign direct investment in the region has achieved USD 1.342 billion.

The actual investment from countries and regions along the Belt and Road accounted for 12.22 percent of that figure, an increase of 10.32 percentage points compared with 2016.

Taking advantage of its geographical advantages, Ningxia promotes land-sea multimodal transport and is now home to freight train operations.