Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region spans across the "Three Norths", connecting eight provinces and regions internally and Russia and Mongolia externally, with a border of over 4200 kilometers and 20 ports open to the outside world. In recent years, Inner Mongolia has fully leveraged its own advantages and taken multiple measures to create an important gateway for China's northward opening-up, achieving practical results. At the Ganqimaodu Port, AGV unmanned vehicles from Mongolia queue up to enter the country. The customs intelligent checkpoint automatically reads and verifies the electronic data of the vehicle manifest and cargo list, and releases them within 30 seconds by lifting the pole, achieving "read second" clearance. In Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia, buses made and exported from China shuttle on the road and are highly favored by local residents. In the China Mongolia Erenhot Zamyn Uud Economic Cooperation Zone, construction workers sweat profusely and work overtime to build. This is the third cross-border economic cooperation zone jointly established by China and neighboring countries. Wang Liping, Director General of the Asia Department of the Ministry of Commerce, recently stated at the 2nd National North Opening Economic and Trade Fair that in recent years, Inner Mongolia has continuously demonstrated new achievements through high-level opening up to the north, taking foreign trade to a new level, achieving new achievements in two-way investment, and reaching new heights in the construction of international logistics ports. According to statistics from the Inner Mongolia Department of Commerce, in the first half of 2024, the import and export freight volume of Inner Mongolia ports increased by 28.1% year-on-year, and the cargo volume of four ports including Manzhouli and Ganqimaodu reached a historical high. The import and export passenger volume of ports exceeded 2.3 million, a year-on-year increase of 91.8%. During the same period, the total import and export volume of Inner Mongolia's foreign trade was 99.78 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.8%, which was 4.7 percentage points higher than the national average growth rate. The export volume of "new three types" products and second-hand cars, as well as the trade volume between border residents, doubled. By the end of 2023, Inner Mongolia has operated over 42000 China Europe freight trains. Inner Mongolia has unique advantages in building an important gateway for opening up to the north. In terms of location, Inner Mongolia is the main road for China's land trade with Russia and Mongolia, with the largest land port between China and Russia - Manzhouli Port, and undertaking more than 90% of the freight volume to Mongolia. On the basis of industry, the coal industry chain in Inner Mongolia continues to extend, and modern agriculture and animal husbandry, new energy equipment manufacturing such as wind and solar, and rare earth new material manufacturing are flourishing, laying a solid foundation for opening up to the north. In terms of policy support, the Opinions of the State Council on Promoting the High quality Development of Inner Mongolia and Striving to Write a New Chapter of Chinese path to modernization proposed a series of support measures, such as strengthening the construction of open channels and accelerating the development of open economy. Inner Mongolia also identified the policy implementation project as a key project to fully promote the national support policy from "paper" to "ground". Inner Mongolia continues to enhance the level of 33 open platforms, including national level economic and technological development zones, comprehensive bonded zones, cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones, and border trade zones. In the border trade zone of Erenhot City, trucks loaded with Mongolian cashmere cleared customs in an orderly manner and entered local processing enterprises. Soon, these cashmere products will be made into exquisite cashmere products. As one of the first pilot areas for the landing and processing of imported goods in the national mutual trade, there are currently 11 registered import goods landing and processing enterprises in Erenhot City, involving industries such as meat, grain and oil, and fluff. In the first half of this year, the trade volume between border residents in Erenhot exceeded 300 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of nearly 386%. Inner Mongolia will combine "going out" and "bringing in", fully utilize bilateral economic and trade cooperation mechanisms, and continuously expand channels for foreign cooperation. Inner Mongolia has successfully hosted events such as the World New Energy and New Materials Conference, the World Mongolian Business Conference, and the China Green Computing Conference, providing a platform for direct dialogue and exchange among enterprises, experts, and government representatives from around the world, promoting international cooperation and investment around the key industrial chain in Inner Mongolia. At the same time, Inner Mongolia continues to strengthen the protection of foreign investment, ensure national treatment for foreign-invested enterprises, and attract and utilize foreign investment with greater efforts. In 2023, Inner Mongolia's actual use of foreign investment reached 5.58 billion yuan, with 167 newly established foreign-invested enterprises, a year-on-year increase of 320%. Liu Yongming, Director of the Port Management Office of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, said that Inner Mongolia will base on the strategic positioning of building an important bridgehead for China's opening up to the north, expand its opening up to the outside world in an all-round way, fully integrate into the domestic and international double cycle, deeply integrate into the joint construction of the "the Belt and Road" and the China Mongolia Russia Economic Corridor, promote port driven, hinterland support, border and hinterland interaction, develop the pan port economy, channel economy and landing economy, and build a new pattern of global opening up that connects the inside and outside, radiates the surrounding, gathers and disperses resources, and integrates elements. (New Society)