In recent years, Jilin province has thoroughly implemented General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speeches and instructions during his visits, focused on building itself into an important window for opening up to the north and a hub for cooperation in Northeast Asia, comprehensively acted on the "one pillar, six doubles" high-quality development strategy, seized opportunities, given full play to advantages, made great efforts in developing trade, channels, platforms and cooperation, and promoted the space expansion and level enhancement of economic and trade cooperation with Russia. Jilin's economic and trade development with Russia has shown great vitality.

Bilateral trade achieved rapid growth. In 2022, Jilin's foreign trade to Russia increased 65 percent to 17.33 billion yuan, 35.7 percentage points higher than the national average, hitting a record high. Exports surged 123 percent to 6.56 billion yuan, and imports grew 43 percent to 10.77 billion yuan. In the first two months of this year, trade with Russia continued to maintain a strong growth trend, with imports and exports increasing 54.1 percent, of which exports jumping 124.1 percent.

Cooperation areas comprehensively expanded. Last year, coal imports from Russia rose 15 percent to 5.52 million tons, further highlighting the role of energy trade as "ballast". More than 8,000 vehicles were exported to Russia, with a trade volume of 2.63 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 306 percent. The development of new trade formats was rapid, with cross-border e-commerce exports to Russia reaching 1.87 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 24.4 percent. The B2C export scale of Hunchun's cross-border e-commerce to Russia ranked first in the country. 29 seafood trade and processing enterprises in Hunchun imported 162,000 tons of seafood from Russia, up 30 percent year on year. In addition, liquefied gas, soybeans, photoelectric products and pharmaceutical products became new trade growth areas.

Corridors and ports improved efficiency and capacity. In 2022, the Hunchun Railway Port offered 24/7 customs clearance services, significantly improving the inspection efficiency of inbound and outbound freight trains. The Hunchun Highway Port perfected the cargo transfer mode and increased the one-way daily traffic capacity to 100 vehicles. Special freight trains carrying vehicles, clean energy and lysine were put into operation. The transportation volume of seafood and coal rose 178.2 percent and 20.7 percent, respectively. The freight route for domestically traded goods from Hunchun to ports in south China via Vladivostok was approved by the State Council.

The level of opening-up platforms greatly enhanced. Efforts were made to develop Hunchun into a bridgehead for economic and trade cooperation with Russia. The establishment of a marine economy demonstration zone, a comprehensive cross-border e-commerce demonstration zone, a comprehensive bonded zone, a pilot project for the on-site processing of imported goods, and a pilot project for market procurement trade was approved. The construction of a "one center and five plates" economic and trade cooperation hub with Russia was accelerated. In 2022, the import and export volume of the Changchun Xinglong Comprehensive Bonded Zone and the Hunchun Comprehensive Bonded Zone surged 318.9 percent and 165.6 percent, respectively.

Regional cooperation saw solid outcomes. The province deeply participated in the ministerial meeting of the Intergovernmental Consultative Committee and the meeting of the Northeast Asian Local Cooperation Committee under the cooperation mechanism framework of the Great Tumen Initiative, hosted the Northeast Asian Policy Dialogue on Industrial Parks for four consecutive years, and strengthened cooperation in such areas as regional connectivity, investment and trade, maritime cooperation and mechanism establishment in Northeast Asia. The province set up a meeting mechanism for port work together with Russia, aiming to promote port infrastructure construction and to improve customs clearance facilitation. In January this year, the province sent an economic and trade delegation to Primorsky Krai, becoming the first delegation to visit Russia after the full resumption of passenger customs clearance at China-Russian land ports. The delegation received high attention and warm welcome from the Russian side. Enterprises participating in the trip signed cooperation agreements and received orders worth 740 million yuan.