Ports serve as the gateways through which China opens up to the outside world.

As China continues to deepen reform across the board, a vast majority of ports in the country have flourished, from the north to the south, from the east to the west, and from border regions to inland areas.

For instance, Alashankou Port in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region sees around 60 trains and 350 vehicles passing through on a daily basis. Thanks to the development of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor (ILSTC), a trade and logistics passage jointly built by provincial-level regions in western China and ASEAN members, Xinjiang is becoming a core area of the Silk Road Economic Belt though far away from China's coastline.

In southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, a smart port project at the Youyi Pass, or Friendship Pass, is currently under construction on the China-Vietnam border, which will turn the vision of intelligent and modern cross-border transportation into reality.

Port activity is a barometer of the national economy.

On the west coast of Bohai Bay, giant vessels are frequently seen arriving and leaving the coal terminal of Huanghua Port in Cangzhou, north China's Hebei province. Huanghua Port serves as a crucial link for transporting coal from west and north China to the eastern and southern regions of the country. The port handles more than 200 million tons of coal every year, but its development was hindered by dust pollution in the past.

To solve the problem, the new philosophy of innovative and green development was adopted by the port, and an intelligent whole-process dust suppression system has been developed to control coal dust throughout the entire process of port operations. Today, the port is completely free of coal dust, with wastewater effectively recycled and reused.

In China, traditional ports are embracing the intelligent, digitalized, low-carbon and green development of the shipping industry, providing strong support for high-quality economic development.

At Yangshan Port, east China's Shanghai, bridge cranes are bustling with activities while large vessels come and go at a high frequency, demonstrating the dynamic and robust Chinese economy to the world. In recent years, Shanghai has been actively pushing for the clustering of shipping service companies, the integration of industrial chains, and the development of market-oriented factors.

Fujian province in southeast China is striving to build a large-scale, intensive, and specialized port cluster that serves the whole country and faces the world. Based on ports in the Beibu Gulf, Guangxi is making every effort to build a cooperative network of port cities between China and ASEAN countries.

In the first half of this year, China's coastal and inland waterway ports saw over 15.21 million arrivals and departures of vessels, with total cargo throughput reaching 9.18 billion tons, representing year-on-year increases of 14.35 percent and 4.85 percent respectively.

To address the obstacles in customs clearance processes, efficiency, and costs, China's ports and customs authorities have been innovating their management approaches and continuously deepening reforms to streamline administration, delegate power, improve regulation and upgrade services.

At a multimodal transport center of a national logistics hub port in Alashankou, Xinjiang, the average customs clearance time has been reduced from 34.5 hours last October to just 5 hours. In the first half of this year, the number of inbound and outbound freight vehicles through the highway port of Alashankou increased by 42.6 percent year on year.

The "green channels" for fast customs clearance of agricultural and sideline products now cover all highway ports between China and Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. The sixth port area of the Ningbo-Zhoushan Port in Yiwu, east China's Zhejiang province, has adopted a unique approach known as "single declaration, single inspection, single release" to handle export containers on sea-rail intermodal trains, helping commodities made in Yiwu reach global markets more efficiently.

China has been promoting high-standard opening up, steadily expanding institutional opening up with regard to rules, regulations, management, and standards, and building new systems for a higher-standard open economy, creating more space for China's development and providing new opportunities for global growth.

While pursuing its own development, China has also been making greater contributions to global development. In particular, the rapid development of Chinese ports has provided essential support for the country's high-standard opening up.

China has launched special freight trains for importing bananas from Southeast Asia. Many high-quality products of ASEAN countries, such as Lao Beer and Angkor Beer, now have their Chinese distributors. An ILSTC tourism promotion alliance has been established. Rapid construction is underway for the modern agricultural industrial park in Lao capital Vientiane.

At the Horgos International Border Cooperation Center on the China-Kazakhstan border in Xinjiang, citizens from both countries can engage in face-to-face negotiations and transactions within the enclosed cross-border economic and trade cooperation zone. So far, the center has attracted over 3,500 businesses.

Today, the China-Europe freight train service reaches over 200 cities in 25 European countries, while the Silk Road Maritime shipping routes link more than 100 ports in 43 countries worldwide. As the major trading partner of over 140 countries and regions, China is making steady progress on the path of high-standard opening up.

By Ye Qi, Luo Shanshan