Over the past three years, China's national trade promotion system has organized more than 6,000 business delegations to visit other countries, as part of an initiative to send business delegations abroad to help Chinese companies find partners and markets.
In August, more than 100 Chinese entrepreneurs traveled to Kyrgyzstan as part of the largest Chinese business delegation to visit the country in recent years. In July, a delegation of Chinese entrepreneurs visited Salt Lake City, Chicago and Washington to explore new areas of economic cooperation with the U.S. Earlier trips this year took Chinese business delegations to countries including the UK, Morocco, Türkiye, Kenya, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Belarus and Mozambique.
In the first eight months of this year, the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) sent 173 delegations to 43 countries and regions.
Finding opportunities
"Local development needs are becoming more specific, and the room for us to get involved is getting clearer," said Wen Peng, chairman of Henan SRON Silo Engineering Co., Ltd. (SRON), describing his biggest takeaway from his trip to Kyrgyzstan this August.
This was his third visit to Kyrgyzstan as a member of a CCPIT business delegation. SRON specializes in bulk storage and logistics solutions for grain, building materials, minerals and coal. He said Kyrgyzstan's relatively high post-harvest grain losses point to real opportunities in agricultural infrastructure and storage.
"This lines up closely with our business, so we didn't treat the trip as just another business visit. It was when we really started paying attention to Kyrgyzstan and the broader Central Asian market and thinking about what we could actually offer there," Wen said.
This also marked Wen's eighth time joining a CCPIT-organized business delegation, with previous trips taking him to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Austria and Italy, among other countries. "For us, this kind of on-the-ground research is both a breakthrough journey into markets like Central Asia and a learning journey that builds our capacity to operate internationally," he said, adding that in-person visits are essential for understanding local industry, market conditions and development plans.
China's foreign trade in goods totaled 30.13 trillion yuan (about $4.49 trillion) in the first seven months of the year, up 17.3 percent year on year, maintaining its position as the world's largest trader in goods. "Behind this growth are foreign trade companies working hard to seize opportunities, and CCPIT has consistently supported them in practical ways," said CCPIT spokesperson Yang Fan.
Gaining confidence
Luo Feng, senior expert and general manager of the overseas division at Hunan Bosen Industrial Group Co., Ltd., joined a CCPIT delegation for the first time this year and came away encouraged by Kyrgyzstan's enthusiasm for cooperation with Chinese companies — from infrastructure and industrial parks to agriculture and tourism. Bosen is now pursuing a digital trade infrastructure project in Kyrgyzstan that combines a computing center, manufacturing and overseas warehousing.
China has remained Kyrgyzstan’s top trading partner and largest source of investment for years. Bilateral trade in goods reached a record $27.2 billion in 2025, up 20 percent year on year.
Despite a complex and shifting global landscape, business communities around the world remain eager to pursue trade and economic exchange. Bosen, which has built projects across the Middle East, North America and Australia and served more than 4,000 companies, sees rising demand for cooperation as global supply chains become more integrated.
Meanwhile, China's expanding market and culture of innovation continue to exert a powerful pull. The U.S.-China Business Council’s latest report found that 92 percent of surveyed U.S. companies had profitable China operations in 2025, while 95 percent said those operations helped boost their global competitiveness.
Turning visits into projects
After the Kyrgyzstan trip, Wang Zhigao, director of the park service center at Yangling Modern Agriculture International Cooperation Group Co., Ltd., stayed behind to check on a China-Kyrgyzstan apple demonstration orchard at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's agricultural base. This marked his fifth visit to the country.
The demonstration orchard has introduced eight advanced apple varieties and 7,200 saplings using dwarfing, high-density planting and smart irrigation technologies, and has already produced its first harvest, Wang said.
At a trade cooperation roundtable held during the visit, Wang shared his experience with Kyrgyz representatives, drawing interest from many companies eager to discuss potential partnerships.
The trip to Kyrgyzstan brought together more than 100 representatives from Chinese companies spanning a wide range of industries, under a CCPIT-organized delegation. During the trip, business representatives from both countries signed more than 10 cooperation agreements or letters of intent, covering agriculture, energy, engineering equipment, construction materials and the digital economy.
Yangling Modern Agriculture International Cooperation Group Co., Ltd. has built 14 overseas agricultural parks in countries including Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tanzania.
By the end of July, CCPIT had approved 976 overseas exhibition projects for 2026 in Belt and Road partner countries, covering 48 countries, with 347 already carried out and nearly 9,000 companies participating. China's national trade promotion system issued 3,389,300 certificates of origin worth $212.34 billion to Belt and Road partner countries and nearly 4,924 ATA Carnets covering goods worth 1.34 billion yuan.
"China's market will create even more growth opportunities, Chinese manufacturing will build a more efficient industrial ecosystem, and Chinese innovation will generate new business forms, scenarios and models," said CCPIT chairman Ren Hongbin, adding that the country will continue pursuing high-quality development and greater openness.
