In the opening year of the 15th Five-Year Plan, Sichuan sent a large delegation to the 16th Xinjiang Kashgar Central and South Asia Commodity Fair (the "Kashgar Fair"), aiming to widen westward trade corridors, break into Central Asia, and help Sichuan products sail overseas. What opportunities and challenges does Central Asia present for Sichuan, and how can the province "cross mountains and seas" to seize them?
A new blue ocean for foreign trade: Central Asia lacks manufacturing supply, while Sichuan holds mature capacity in machinery, equipment, and more.
Geographically, Sichuan seems far removed from Central Asia — it is more than 3,000 kilometers even from Kashgar, China's westernmost hub. Borderless and landlocked though it appears, Sichuan sits at the geometric center of the Eurasian continent and has traded with Central Asia for centuries: silk and tea from Sichuan traveled the Silk Road to the Western Regions a thousand years ago.
In recent years Sichuan has pushed steadily westward, building a strategic highland of opening-up; it now maintains 20 international sister-city and friendly-cooperation relationships with Central Asian countries.
On transport corridors, Sichuan's cross-border road routes to Central Asia already cover more than 20 key cities across the five Central Asian countries, carrying over 40 categories of goods. The "Tianfu" cross-border road freight service carries over 100 categories of goods worth more than RMB 20 billion in output value. Combined with multiple China-Europe freight trains transiting Central Asia, these routes form a "golden corridor" for Sichuan goods leaving the province.
"We export electric vehicles to Southeast Asia, and sea freight routinely takes half a month. By comparison, land transport is more efficient, convenient, and stable," said Feng Zhongman, technical manager of Sichuan Suliyuan New Energy Technology.
Mature logistics corridors lay the groundwork for market access. In recent years many Sichuan companies have entered Central Asia: Dongfang Electric, for example, set up a Central Asia regional operations center in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Others base themselves in Xinjiang to radiate into Central Asia — Xinda Pump & Valve invested in an assembly, production, and maintenance center in Xinjiang's Yining industrial park, moving from "product trade" to "industrial rooting."
As Central Asia enters a boom cycle of infrastructure and capacity expansion, with industrialization just beginning, the region has become a popular destination for Chinese companies going global — a new blue ocean for foreign trade.
At the "Sichuan–Xinjiang: Linking a New Silk Road" matchmaking event held during the Kashgar Fair, Rustambek Baratov of the Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry released a demand list of 95 projects worth more than USD 10 billion, spanning mining, residential construction, textiles, and chemicals. Two single projects each exceed USD 1 billion: a 1,000-hectare small-town development (residential buildings, industrial parks, hotels) and a 940-hectare modern greenhouse project.
"Central Asian markets lack manufacturing supply and rely heavily on imported industrial goods, with strong demand for agricultural machinery, electronics and home appliances, and new building materials. Sichuan happens to have mature capacity and cost advantages in machinery, equipment, and consumer goods — the two economies are highly complementary," said an official with the Sichuan Provincial Department of Economy and Information Technology.
Central Asia through Sichuan companies' eyes: overall price points are low, daily consumer goods are active, and buyers value practicality, durability, and cost performance.
In 2025, China became the largest trading partner of the five Central Asian countries for the first time, with exports of USD 71.2 billion. Mechanical, electrical, and high-tech products grew strongly, and the "new three" — electric vehicles, lithium batteries, and solar cells — steadily expanded their market share.
By contrast, Sichuan's total exports to the five Central Asian countries in 2025 were under RMB 10 billion, with a low share in vehicles and transport equipment, electronic and electrical equipment, and machinery. Compared with Sichuan's industrial scale and capacity, the headroom is enormous.
"Take rubber: in 2025, the five Central Asian countries, Pakistan, and Belarus imported nearly RMB 6.8 billion of rubber tires from China, while Sichuan accounted for only 1.3% of the national total. A huge gap means a huge opportunity," the official said.
Behind the headroom lie bottlenecks yet to be cleared. For many Sichuan SMEs, Central Asia remains unfamiliar — their knowledge stops at "hearsay," without specifics on country-level demand, market-access standards, or the competitive landscape. Information asymmetry and blocked channels create market-entry barriers.
To promote its corrosion-resistant stainless-steel pipe fittings, Wu Chunling — deputy general manager in charge of foreign trade at Sichuan Longlike Stainless Steel Pipe — has made repeated market-study trips to Central Asia. "After investigating, we found some Central Asian countries cannot produce stainless steel at all, and our products offer great value. The feedback at exhibitions has been positive."
Several companies interviewed shared the same observation: overall price levels in Central Asia are low, with a pronounced "sinking market" character; daily consumer goods are active, and buyers emphasize practicality, durability, and value for money.
"We make flexible stone. We broadly understand Central Asian countries' construction needs, but we need to pin down more market details. As a manufacturer, we also need reliable overseas partners," said He Jiaren, sales director of Yibin Bonawell New Materials.
For companies without Central Asia trade experience, cross-border logistics and legal compliance are real obstacles. Feng Zhongman has done field research in Central Asia but remains unclear on practicalities like customs clearance and foreign-exchange settlement: "At this Kashgar Fair I signed up for the bonded-zone study tour — I want to understand the customs process and figure out logistics costs."
Sichuan's group appearance at the Kashgar Fair: building channels and pushing industrial chains westward with a "circle-and-chain" mindset.
Facing both opportunities and challenges, how does Sichuan "cross mountains and seas"? One keyword is industry-trade coordination: turning short-term exhibition matchmaking into long-term cross-border industrial-chain collaboration.
This large-scale market-expansion trip to Xinjiang went beyond exhibiting and on-site negotiation: the delegation also held symposiums with Xinjiang authorities and development zones, and organized company visits to industrial parks, ports, and bonded zones — forming a full chain from showcase to matchmaking to investigation.
According to the Department of Economy and Information Technology, conventional trade fairs follow an "enter on your own, exhibit on your own" model lacking systematic industrial organization and precise matching. This event explored a shift from "one-off deals at single exhibitions" to a "full-cycle industrial coordination mechanism": starting from the industrial side, identifying Central Asian demand characteristics and growth potential, and then advancing three types of industrial cooperation — supporting processing, long-term centralized procurement, and joint R&D — matched against Sichuan's key industrial chains.
"In the past, companies ran after markets alone, at high cost and with little information. This time everything from booth matchmaking to buyer invitations was precisely matched," said Wu Chunling. "Our corrosion-resistant stainless-steel pipe fittings drew a lot of attention — several Central Asian buyers have already booked sample viewings. Very efficient."
The group appearance also served to build channels and push industrial chains westward with a "circle-and-chain" mindset. Kashgar, an important gateway for China's westward opening, enjoys the unique advantage of "five ports connecting eight countries, one road linking Europe and Asia." Several of Kashgar's industrial parks host companies specializing in foreign trade.
Xinjiang Xiaode Electrical Technology is one of them — a Guangdong-aid enterprise that settled in Kashgar. "We mainly produce small home appliances such as electric kettles and fans, radiating into Central and South Asia from Kashgar's geographic advantage," said Wang Tingting, the company's foreign-trade director.
During the fair, Sichuan held multiple symposiums with relevant Xinjiang departments, leveraging complementary Sichuan–Xinjiang resources to deeply connect upstream and downstream industrial chains and jointly build integrated cross-border industrial chains.
Notably, during the fair Sichuan also launched the digital going-global platform — the "Crossing Mountains and Seas" independent site — creating a permanent online showcase that adds digital momentum to Sichuan manufacturing's cultivation of Central and South Asian markets and its service of westward opening.
Source: 四川日报 / 人民网四川频道（记者 王若晔） · 2026-08-18