Dalian strives to make digital trade an important driving force for high-quality trade development, propelling its progress onto the fast track of growth. By 2025, the development goals for digital trade in Dalian, Liaoning are: to build Dalian into a leading cross-border digital trade demonstration zone and a digital trade navigation zone in northern China, with the city’s total foreign digital trade reaching $10 billion, with an average annual growth rate of 15%. The number of offshore digital enterprises with a trade volume of over $10 million will reach 30, and the retail sales of e-commerce platforms will reach 34 billion yuan.

Dalian has been designated as a pilot city for comprehensively deepening innovative development of trade in services, as well as one of the initial cities to demonstrate excellence in service outsourcing throughout China. It boasts high-level open platforms such as the Dalian Area of China (Liaoning) Pilot Free Trade Zone, the China (Dalian) Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone, and the National Digital Service Export Base in the High-tech Zone.

In alignment with the overarching objective of digital trade development, Dalian has taken a differentiated approach to create three digital trade platforms, each leveraging the unique comparative advantages of their respective regions: Dalian High-tech Zone, to establish an innovation hub for the digital technology industry in northern China and an international hub for digital trade; Jinpu New Area, to build a platform with open trade systems and a center for the integration and application of digital technologies; and the National-level Foreign Trade Transformation and Upgrading Base, to set the standard for digital trade transformation and serve as a model for best practices.

The action plan sets key tasks from the following eight aspects: accelerating the construction of new digital trade infrastructure, promoting the construction of data centers, digital logistics facilities, and smart ports; increasing the openness of digital trade, improving the convenience level of digital trade, and building a diversified market network; accelerating the transformation and upgrading of service outsourcing, vigorously developing high value-added business and productive service outsourcing; deepening the innovative development of cross-border e-commerce, promoting the upgrading of the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone; accelerating the digital empowerment of the trade chain, speeding up the digital transformation of trade entities, and building a digital supply chain system; building high-capacity trade promotion platforms, strengthening the construction of exhibition platform, trade transaction platform, and comprehensive service platform; accelerating the development of new digital trade patterns, vigorously developing digital culture, digital finance, digital medicine, and digital commerce; and improving the governance system of digital trade.