This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative. According to the Changsha Customs, over the past decade, Hunan's trade with countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has seen significant growth, with the cumulative import and export trade volume reaching 1.47 trillion yuan. This marks a substantial increase from 66.44 billion yuan in 2013 to 352.07 billion yuan in 2022, with an average annual growth rate of 20.4%.

This year, Hunan's foreign trade with BRI countries has maintained stable growth. In the first eight months, the province's total import and export volume with these countries amounted to 222.45 billion yuan.

Over the past decade, Hunan's top five trading partners among BRI countries were South Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, South Africa, and Thailand. The combined trade volume accounted for 38.5% of Hunan's total trade with BRI countries.

Hunan's main exports to BRI countries were construction machinery, electric passenger vehicles, lithium batteries, solar cells, fireworks, and firecrackers. In the first eight months of this year, Hunan exported 12.67 billion yuan of construction machinery, a year-on-year increase of 87.9%, while the export value was only 4.13 billion yuan in 2013. The exports of electric passenger vehicles reached 1.37 billion yuan, with no exports in 2013. Hunan's exports of fireworks and firecrackers accounted for 65.3% of the national total.

In terms of import structure, Hunan has witnessed substantial growth in the import of agricultural products and food. In 2013, imports of agricultural products and food from BRI countries were only 550 million yuan and 420 million yuan, respectively. However, in the first eight months of this year, imports of agricultural products and food reached 6.33 billion yuan and 6.08 billion yuan, respectively.

Over the past decade, Hunan has developed five major international trade corridors integrating sea, road, air, mail and rail transport services. In terms of logistics structure, in the first eight months of this year, water transportation accounted for 74.5%, road transportation 16.2%, air transportation 8.5%, and rail transportation 0.8%. Hunan has opened routes to central Europe, Laos, and Vietnam, and it has also launched Hunan-Guangdong-Africa rail-sea intermodal trains and New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor rail-sea intermodal trains. Hunan has handled China-Europe Railway Express trains for ten years, with a total of 4,175 trains operated as of August this year and making Hunan among the top nationwide in terms of the number of trains operated.