A smart tap connecting countless border residents

It is dawn in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region's Ereenhot, a major land port on the China-Mongolia border. A Chinese local named Bater rides his motorcycle from Mongolia to the mutual trade zone at the border, as he does every day. Behind him are trucks loaded with wool and dairy products from Mongolia waiting in line to clear customs and enter China. But unlike in the past, Bater now needs only to tap a smart terminal on his smartphone to see customs clearance, settlement and logistics information at one place.

The process of declaration, inspection and release of the consignment of wool he is bringing from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, can now be completed digitally. It looks like a small step for border mutual trade, but it reflects a major stride in Inner Mongolia's opening-up to the north.

The China (Inner Mongolia) Pilot Free Trade Zone was approved in April. For many people, Inner Mongolia is synonymous with grasslands, a frontier region and an ecological shield in the country's northern border area. Today, however, this vast land is taking on a new mission.

The FTZ's development plan gives the region greater autonomy to pursue reform, with 19 measures for reform and innovation. Like 19 seeds scattered across the grasslands, these measures are beginning to take root, awaiting new growth.

From developing innovative approaches to border mutual trade and strengthening international logistics services, to improving the commercialization of scientific and technological achievements and expanding exchanges with other countries, Inner Mongolia is embarking on a broad and far-reaching experiment featuring pioneering, integrated and differentiated reforms. The key to understanding this experiment lies precisely in the small, everyday changes taking place across the grasslands.

Step into the border trade zone in Ereenhot, and amid the bustling trading activities, you will find some of the most vivid stories of the opening-up drive. As the core trading platform at China's largest land port with Mongolia, the zone is making full use of its geographical advantages and the policy, allowing every border resident to import goods worth no more than 8,000 yuan ($1,189.63) duty-free per day. It has continued to deepen the "border mutual trade + local processing" model.

Rather than simply reselling the goods they import within their duty-free allowance, border residents send these directly to local processing companies for further processing, keeping the value-added links of trade within China and in the local area. Goods traded through this channel include frozen horse meat, cashmere, Mongolian robes, wool sweaters, wool trousers and ethnic carpets.

Pure-wool carpets, grassland honey and handmade dairy products from Mongolia are traded alongside dried beef, ethnic clothing and distinctive handicrafts from Inner Mongolia. Together, they meet Chinese consumers' demand for specialty products from abroad while highlighting the ethnic character and livelihood dimension of border trade.

The vitality of the border trade zone in Ereenhot can be seen in the value and volume of each cross-border transaction. In 2025, the total volume of goods imported and exported through Ereenhot's border trade reached 27,200 metric tons, with a trade value of 823 million yuan, up 235.80 percent and 54.12 percent year-on-year, respectively. Both figures hit record highs, making the trade zone an important new growth driver for the regional economy.

Washed and combed cashmere and frozen horse meat accounted for more than 95 percent of the total, with all of these products processed locally. More than 15,000 border residents like Bater participate in the trade, making more than 100,000 transactions over the year and generating more than 6 million yuan in additional income.

Today, the "border mutual trade + local processing" model has become an important engine of port-based economic development, helping Ereenhot move from a "transit economy" toward a "local value-added economy".

It is not only an important window into Inner Mongolia's opening-up to the north, but also a vivid example of the autonomous region's efforts to boost prosperity in border areas, consolidate border security and improve people's livelihoods.

If border trade forms the "capillaries" of Inner Mongolia's opening-up, international logistics corridors are its "main arteries".

In the past, cross-border multimodal transport involving China, Russia, Mongolia and European countries often had to navigate incompatible railway and customs systems. As goods passed through each country, they had to be declared, documented and inspected again, with paperwork alone sometimes accounting for one-third of the total transport time.

When a China-Europe freight train loaded with goods pulls out of Manzhouli Port today, it uses, for the first time, a "single bill of lading" for multimodal transport under the pilot free trade zone. Goods no longer need to be accompanied by new documents when they reach the port; instead, they can simply switch tracks, greatly improving customs clearance efficiency.

Just one document is connecting the entire chain linking railways, highways, customs clearance and financial services. It marks another solid step by Inner Mongolia toward exploring more convenient operating models for China-Europe freight trains.

Behind this institutional innovation is the Inner Mongolia FTZ's deeper integration into and innovation of international logistics rules. Leveraging its advantages as a hub for China-Europe freight trains, the Inner Mongolia FTZ has worked with railway companies, customs authorities and financial institutions along the routes to establish mutual recognition mechanisms for electronic waybills and credit.

Companies need to submit cargo information only once to generate a single bill of lading covering the entire process. The document can serve as a transport contract, receipt for the goods and proof of title, and can even be used for trade financing. In effect, an entire truckload of goods can be turned into a "single-document" shipment.

Today, the Manzhouli and Ereenhot ports have introduced digital customs clearance for China-Europe freight trains. At the Manzhouli railway port, the digital port system has reduced customs release times from half a day to less than 30 minutes.

At Ereenhot, interconnected information systems based on "one-time data entry and one bill throughout the process" have cut train handover procedures from seven or eight hours to as little as two hours.

In 2025, 4,867 China-Europe freight trains crossed the border through the Manzhouli Port, an increase of 11.2 percent year-on-year. Of these, 2,977 were return trains, up 21 percent and ranking first nationwide in terms of growth.

At the Ereenhot railway port, the number of China-Europe freight trains exceeded 3,900 for the first time during the year, bringing the cumulative total to more than 22,000. The port now serves 75 routes linking more than 70 hub stations in more than 10 countries, including Germany and Poland.

These institutional innovations have not only enabled goods from Shandong province, Chongqing and other parts of China to move efficiently through Inner Mongolia to overseas markets, but have also attracted export cargo from the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and Northeast China to the region. Every truck and train crossing the border has become a vivid symbol of Inner Mongolia's opening-up to the north.

The momentum of opening-up in Inner Mongolia is also being felt on the frontiers of scientific and technological innovation. In Hohhot, the "Mengkeju" innovation-driven platform is buzzing with activity as scientific achievements are commercialized at an accelerating pace. The scene is different from the bustle of the border ports, but no less vibrant.

Research teams from the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area are being matched with Inner Mongolian companies, enabling cutting-edge technologies to move from laboratories to production lines and become new drivers of high-quality development.

Models such as "eastern technologies + western application scenarios" and "Greater Bay Area R&D + Inner Mongolia commercialization" are creating a strong synergy between Inner Mongolia's resource advantages and the technological strengths of eastern China.

Smart agricultural technologies from Shanghai are taking root on pastures in Xiliin Gol grassland, helping transform traditional animal husbandry through precision breeding and intelligent management. Big data technologies from Beijing are being combined with Inner Mongolia's strengths in computing resources to develop an intelligent computing industrial park, providing computing power for the country's digital economy. Artificial intelligence technologies from Anhui province are being applied in Inner Mongolia's dairy and health care sectors, helping upgrade local industries.

Inner Mongolia has established long-term cooperation mechanisms with more than 30 universities and research institutes across China, jointly built 277 R&D platforms and launched more than 1,600 scientific and technological cooperation projects.

In the field of rare earth new materials, new energy and biomedicine, a number of landmark scientific achievements are being commercialized at a faster pace. Inner Mongolia is becoming not only an "energy base" and a "base for agricultural and livestock products", but also a testing ground for technological innovation and a fertile ground for commercialization.

Open cooperation in science and technology is breaking down geographical barriers and allowing innovation resources to flow more freely across the northern frontier, injecting a steady stream of vitality into Inner Mongolia's high-quality development.

Opening-up means more than economic prosperity. It also means deepening ties between people. It is more than trade and commerce; it is also about cultural exchange and mutual understanding.

Across Inner Mongolia, stories of international exchange unfold every day. In Ulaanbaatar one afternoon, a Mongolian trader buys newly arrived brick tea from a Chinese tea shop in Ereenhot. The tea, following the ancient route once traveled by camel caravans, evokes the centuries-old sounds of bells chiming along the tea road. Today, under the impetus of the pilot free trade zone, it has become a new medium for people-to-people exchanges between China and Mongolia.

Unlike the "hard connectivity" of major projects and infrastructure, the Inner Mongolia FTZ places greater emphasis on the "soft" side of external exchanges.

Thanks to the China-Mongolia Ereenhot-Zamyn-Uud Economic Cooperation Zone, tourists from both countries are eligible for cross-border day-trip tours to Ereenhot and Zamyn-Uud.

Moreover, the profound resources of traditional Mongolian medicine in Hohhot have drawn numerous international patients seeking diagnosis and treatment, making this ancient healing practice a flexible bond that connects the health and well-being of people across the world.

Today, more and more international visitors are coming to Inner Mongolia to experience the distinctive appeal of its unique culture, while an increasing number of Inner Mongolian companies and cultural groups are venturing overseas to share vivid stories from China's northern frontier with the world.

As external exchanges deepen, Inner Mongolia's circle of friends continues to grow. Even more moving are the small-scale, people-to-people exchanges: China-Mongolia Naadam competitions — a traditional Mongolian festival marked by wrestling, horse racing and archery — jointly organized by border residents, Mongolian handicrafts sold through cross-border e-commerce platforms, regular student exchange programs between schools on both sides of the border, and distinct tourism routes built around the ancient tea road.

Through these grassroots, people-centered and modest but meaningful initiatives, the Inner Mongolia FTZ is paving a path toward opening-up to the north based on mutual trust and friendship.

Now let us return to the morning when Bater set out. The moment he gently tapped on the smart terminal, the fingertips of countless border residents seemed to come together, forming the most delicate pulse of opening-up across the grasslands. With reform seeds planted deep in the prairie, the Inner Mongolia FTZ is nurturing new shoots of openness.

It is through these small changes in everyday life that people will ultimately understand the secret of the grasslands: they offer a vivid answer to how China can promote high-quality development through high-standard opening-up.

The author is an assistant researcher of the Public Management Institute at the Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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