A major province in western China has drawn another new development circle.

According to Shaanxi Daily, on September 17, Zhao Gang, Governor of Shaanxi Province, conducted an investigation into the integrated development of port, trade and industry in Xi'an and chaired a symposium. The meeting emphasized in particular that the China-Europe Railway Express economic circle should be built with high quality.

The meeting pointed out that giving full play to the driving role of China-Europe Railway Express (Xi'an), promoting the integrated development of port, trade and industry, and building a China-Europe Railway Express economic circle is a key starting point for Shaanxi to deeply integrate into the Belt and Road Initiative development framework. It is necessary to actively participate in the construction of the New Eurasian Land-Sea Transport Corridor and the Trans-Caspian International Transport Corridor, continuously optimize the route layout, improve hub nodes, facilitate customs clearance, and make every effort to build an international trade channel with high efficiency, low cost and high-quality services.

Meanwhile, we should focus on the goals of stabilizing volume, improving quality, promoting trade and gathering industries, strengthen the linkage between hubs, platforms and industries, increase the efforts to introduce and cultivate enterprises and industries suitable for railway and port transportation, actively develop new forms of business such as cross-border e-commerce and bonded trade, and promote the transformative development of China-Europe Railway Express (Xi'an).

Public information shows that in September 2024, the CPC Shaanxi Provincial Committee first put forward the strategic vision of building a China-Europe Railway Express economic circle.

At the beginning of 2025, as an important starting point for expanding high-level opening-up, the China-Europe Railway Express economic circle was successively written into the work reports of the Shaanxi Provincial Government and the Xi'an Municipal Government.

The provincial authorities proposed to promote the integrated development of port, trade, industry and city, and build a China-Europe Railway Express economic circle featuring "logistics + trade + finance + industry". For Xi'an, it is required to build the China-Europe Railway Express (Xi'an) assembly center with higher standards, strengthen international economic and trade cooperation, cultivate and develop port-adjacent industries, and build the China-Europe Railway Express (Xi'an) economic circle.

In May of the same year, the "Strategic Vision for Building the China-Europe Railway Express (Xi'an) Economic Circle" was officially released at the China-Europe Railway Express (Xi'an) Global Partner Matching and Negotiation Conference. At that time, local media interpreted that "this means that a China-Europe Railway Express (Xi'an) economic circle jointly built by countries along the China-Europe Railway Express routes will emerge."

What are the considerations behind this? The practical background is that China-Europe Railway Express has been in operation for ten years. While realizing the deep linkage between inland regions and overseas markets, it also faces prominent problems such as the channel advantages not being fully transformed into industrial advantages, and the insufficient integration of logistics and real industries. Most of the stations still focus on simple cargo distribution, and the layout of bonded processing, industrial supporting, cross-border supply chain services and other sectors lags behind.

In other words, goods pass through Xi'an, but the profits do not necessarily stay in Xi'an. This is exactly the gap that the "economic circle" initiative aims to fill.

To this end, Shaanxi hopes to rely on the railway logistics network, take industrial integration as the guide, create a new model of open development in the multi-dimensional coordination of "logistics + trade + finance + industry", and build a brand-new opening-up pattern of "hub leading, trunk and branch linkage, and all-round opening".

As some analyses point out, the value of a hub never lies in the channel function itself, but in driving the gathering of capital, talents, technologies and industries in the surrounding areas during the process of cargo flow — traffic volume is the starting point, and value increment is the goal.

How to realize the tangible value increment? Shaanxi's approach is to strengthen the driving effect of multi-layered circles —

Relying on Xi'an Port to build the Xi'an core circle, promoting Baoji, Yulin and Ankang to expand their carrying capacity to form the intra-provincial coordination circle, focusing on the "+ Western Europe" cities to build the inter-provincial linkage circle, and then adopting the "hub-to-hub" model to expand cooperation in logistics, trade, science, education, culture and other fields to form an overseas radiation circle.

Shifting from "channel economy" to "localized economy", the real test lies not only in how far the trains can run, but also in how many industries can be retained.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "City Evolution", written by Liu Yanmei, authorized for release by 36Kr.