Kunming Area of China (Yunnan) Pilot Free Trade Zone Sets a New Benchmark for Open Development

Early morning in Mohan. As the border gates just opened, the Lancang-Mekong Express loaded with Thai durians glided gently into Mohan Railway Port, where refrigerated containers began transshipment. A few kilometers away at the highway port, in front of the entry-exit checkpoint widened to 12 lanes, a truck driver handed over his documents and received his release slip just four minutes later. Via the China-Laos Railway — this "golden corridor" — durians travel from Thai orchards to Kunming markets in only three days.

The Lancang-Mekong Express loaded with Thai durians.

On August 30, 2019, the Kunming Area of China (Yunnan) Pilot Free Trade Zone (hereinafter referred to as the "Kunming Area") was officially inaugurated. In April 2022, the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government decided that Kunming would administer Mohan Town in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture on a trusteeship basis to jointly build an international port city; formal trusteeship took effect in May of that year. Since then, Kunming has become the only provincial capital city in China with a border line and border ports, and the only city combining the advantages of four zones—the pilot free trade zone, the national-level economic and technological development zone, the comprehensive bonded zone, and the cross-border economic cooperation zone. The Kunming Area is the open platform that concentrates this unique advantage.

Breaking Down Institutional Barriers: Playing the "One Game" of Open Development

Aerial View of Mohan

Mohan has "ports but lacks industry," while Kunming has "industry but lacks a port." This is the real-world challenge that the "Four-Zone Linkage" must solve. After Kunming took over the trusteeship of Mohan, the key to unlocking this challenge was found.

Rather than simply superimposing the policies of the four zones, Kunming has used flexible policy combinations such as "1+1" and "2+1" to promote industrial agglomeration in the economic development zone, policy pioneering in the pilot free trade zone, cost savings in the comprehensive bonded zone, and integrated customs facilitation in the cross-border cooperation zone, forming a development pattern of "more, faster, better, and cost-effective" outcomes and "3+1 > 4."

The first barrier to fall was the institutional "wall." In August 2024, Several Measures of Kunming Municipality for Promoting the "Four-Zone" Linkage Development was issued and implemented, with the provincial support plan and the 15 municipal measures forming a policy matrix. In the past, enterprises registered in Mohan but operating in Kunming often had to travel back and forth between the two locations. Today, the "Kunming-Mohan Cross-Zone Connect" government service relay model, jointly launched by the Kunming Area and the China-Laos Mohan-Moding Economic Cooperation Zone (hereinafter referred to as the "Mohan-Moding Cooperation Zone"), enables cross-region document reception, local approval, relay processing, and on-site certificate issuance. By the end of 2025, the two sides had launched 29 "cross-zone interconnected services," with 40 approval items achieving "one-stop online handling" and "inter-provincial handling."

"I thought it would take at least a month, but I received my business license in just three working days," said Qiu Na, legal representative of Yunnan Jiuhuayuan Import & Export Co., Ltd. On December 15, 2022, the first business license under Kunming's trusteeship was issued at the government service center of the Mohan-Moding Cooperation Zone. Since then, the pace of Kunming-Mohan coordination has accelerated, with cross-zone services covering a growing range of businesses.

Over seven years, the edge of reform has been honed ever finer. With the opening of the Kunming-Mohan patent pre-examination channel, the patent pre-examination cycle has been shortened to three to four days, a 90% reduction from before. In August 2026, the Implementation Plan for Full Coverage of "One License, Multiple Sites" Record-Registration in the Kunming Area of China (Yunnan) Pilot Free Trade Zone, the Kunming Economic and Technological Development Zone, the Kunming Comprehensive Bonded Zone, and the Mohan-Moding Cooperation Zone was officially released. The reform has expanded from a two-zone pilot to the full territory of the "four zones," allowing multi-site operations and region-wide access under a single business license.

On the industrial front, Kunming has taken the Kunming Area as the lead to push all open platforms to "act in concert," delivering a "combination punch" of investment attraction across five major industrial chains. The economic development zone is absorbing industrial transfers in equipment manufacturing, biomedicine, and modern logistics; the Kunming Area is focusing on cutting-edge technology, emerging business formats, and international cooperation; the Mohan-Moding Cooperation Zone is strengthening cross-border trade, tourism and healthcare, and production-capacity cooperation; and the comprehensive bonded zone is bolstering bonded processing, bonded maintenance, and cross-border e-commerce support. Together, they form a trade closed loop of "front port, back warehouse."

The Hudian Lingang Kunming Science and Technology City, which opened in December 2023, epitomizes this industrial collaboration. The park has signed agreements with more than 40 enterprises, with cumulative investment-attraction area exceeding 100,000 square meters and 144 enterprises registered in clusters. "Bringing enterprises in is only the first step; helping them take root and grow strong is the real test of skill," said Qi Longjun, General Manager of Yunnan Hudian Lingang Kunming Science and Technology City Industrial Development Co., Ltd.

Hudian Lingang Kunming Science and Technology City

In terms of corridors, leveraging the China-Laos Railway as a "golden corridor," the Kunming Area was selected as one of the country's second batch of China-Europe (Asia) international railway train assembly centers, and Wangjiaying West Station was approved as the only overland departure port with tax-refund qualification in the province. After comprehensive upgrading of Mohan Port, the entry-exit checkpoint was widened from 4 lanes to 12, and the inspection and release time for freight vehicles was compressed to four minutes; customs clearance time at the railway port was reduced from 40 hours to 5 hours, and the highway port's throughput capacity leapt from 600,000 tonnes to 13 million tonnes.

Gathering Momentum and Rising: Turning Open Dividends into Developmental Strength

Seven years on, the Kunming Area has built up a solid foundation.

From 2019 to 2024, the number of newly registered enterprises in the Kunming Area grew by 2.6 times, foreign-invested enterprises by 1.6 times, total foreign trade import and export volume by 4.8 times, and actually utilized foreign capital by 1.1 times. The implementation rate of the 94 reform pilot tasks assigned by the State Council reached 100%, with 257 institutional innovation achievements accumulated, 16 of which were national firsts. Since its establishment, cumulative actually utilized foreign investment reached US$836 million, and cumulative total trade import and export volume reached 201.153 billion yuan.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the Kunming Area's GDP exceeded 60 billion yuan, and the number of market entities surpassed 108,000, more than tripling from the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan. Among these market entities, 63,000 are enterprises. This figure consistently ranks in the top tier among development zones across the province. The trucks moving through the parks, the office lights burning late into the night, and the queue-number screens in government service halls are all the most vivid "footnotes" to this solid foundation.

"Once you locate in the economic development zone, you can quickly build a full-chain supply system integrating domestic production, cross-border circulation, and hot sales in ASEAN markets," said Chen Ruibin, Secretary of the Party Working Committee of the Kunming Economic and Technological Development Zone (the Kunming Area) and the Mohan-Moding Cooperation Zone, at the "Invest in Yunnan · Focus on the Development Zone" online investment promotion event.

Kunming Economic and Technological Development Zone (Kunming Area of China Pilot Free Trade Zone)

Since its establishment, the industrial level of the Kunming Area has steadily risen. In 2025, the operating revenue of "above-scale" enterprises reached 266 billion yuan, and the gross industrial output above designated size reached 50.3 billion yuan. There are 12 national-level specialized, sophisticated, unique, and innovative "little giant" enterprises, 188 provincial-level specialized and sophisticated SMEs, and 380 high-tech enterprises, all ranking first among development zones in the province. The biomedicine and health industry posted revenue of 27 billion yuan in 2025, and the advanced equipment manufacturing sector reached an output value of 10.2 billion yuan.

Corridor traffic is translating into economic increments. In 2025, the China-Laos Railway carried 19.51 million passengers and 24.48 million tonnes of freight, up 24.6% year on year. Freight categories expanded to more than 4,000, radiating to 19 countries and regions. Mohan Railway Port has become China's largest railway port facing ASEAN. In 2025, the Kunming Area's fruit import and export volume reached 3.468 billion yuan, up 206.82% year on year; fresh durian imports alone reached 3.16 billion yuan, up 245.1% year on year, and the durian trade scale is expected to exceed 3 billion yuan in 2026. The cross-border e-commerce 9710 model landed in Mohan, with the first consignment cleared in just six hours. In 2025, the Kunming Area's total import and export volume reached 16.01 billion yuan, up 136.9% year on year.

Another report card is written in the border villages. Since Kunming took over trusteeship, Mohan has completed cumulative investment of over 16 billion yuan, and its population has grown from 20,000 to over 40,000. Fixed-asset investment, general public budget revenue, funds from outside the province in place, and permanent population have all doubled. A total of 65 projects have been landed; the Nanpo International Industrial Cooperation Zone has secured 25 industrial projects with a total investment of approximately 5.754 billion yuan. Six modern border happy villages have been built, with the highest annual collective economic income reaching 1.223 million yuan—more than 12 times that before trusteeship. The per capita annual net income of residents in Manzhuang Village rose from less than 18,000 yuan in 2022 to 28,000 yuan in 2025.

"Young people who went away to work now have jobs to come back to," said Chen Quanwu, Party General Branch Secretary and Village Committee Director of Manzhuang Village. Through "village-enterprise linkage" and other means participating in cross-border industries, border residents are enjoying more development dividends from opening up.

Sanlian Garment Co., Ltd., a company from Fujian Province, went from deciding to build a factory to trial production in just over 20 days. Inside the production workshop, six garment processing lines are already in operation, with employees working overtime to make inner linings for outdoor jackets. "The first phase plans an investment of 330 million yuan, and annual output value can reach 1 billion yuan once at full capacity," said Liu Xiuwen, the company's HR and Administration Director. Choosing Mohan was driven precisely by its locational advantage connected to the China-Laos Railway: "Products can be exported by rail to Laos and then radiate to South and Southeast Asian markets."

Production line of Sanlian Garment Co., Ltd. settled in the Nanpo International Industrial Demonstration Park.

The effects of Kunming's "Four-Zone Linkage" extend beyond domestic ports, radiating deep into Laos along the China-Laos Railway. As China's only national-level overseas economic and trade cooperation zone in Laos, the Vientiane Saysettha Development Zone now hosts 120 enterprises. Laos' Pasaxon (People's Newspaper) once devoted a full page to praising this collaborative opening-up model as injecting accelerated momentum into the Belt and Road Initiative.

Full-page report on Page 7 of Laos' Pasaxon (People's Newspaper)

Forging Ahead Toward the New: Building a "New Highland" for Border Opening-Up

In June 2026, the Development Plan for the Kunming Metropolitan Area received written approval from the National Development and Reform Commission and was issued and implemented by the Yunnan Provincial Government, elevating the Kunming Metropolitan Area to the rank of national-level metropolitan area. The Plan calls for promoting the linkage development of the "four zones"—the Kunming Area of the pilot free trade zone, the Kunming Economic and Technological Development Zone, the Kunming Comprehensive Bonded Zone, and the Mohan-Moding Cooperation Zone—and encourages in-depth alignment and deeper cooperation between the pilot free trade zone and other development and opening platforms, creating a batch of linkage innovation zones and coordinated development zones within the metropolitan area to amplify the radiating and spillover effects of the pilot free trade zone.

Meanwhile, the Regulations of China (Yunnan) Pilot Free Trade Zone came into force on September 1, 2025, for the first time codifying and implementing the national "FTZ upgrading strategy" through local legislation. In accordance with the Regulations, the Kunming Area will focus on developing high-end manufacturing, aviation logistics, the digital economy, and headquarters economy, and build itself into an interconnectivity hub, an information and logistics center, and a cultural and educational center facing South and Southeast Asia.

Mohan Railway Station

Looking ahead to the 15th Five-Year Plan, the Kunming Area will fully implement the FTZ upgrading strategy, build the Kunming International Land Port to high standards, accelerate the development of the two-way logistics system of "Wangjiaying cargo consolidation – Mohan customs clearance," speed up the establishment of the Kunming International Data Exchange, and lay out emerging and future industries in optoelectronics, hydrogen energy, the low-altitude economy, and low-orbit satellite constellations. Shanghai-Yunnan industrial collaboration will continue to deepen; relying on the Shanghai-Yunnan "16+16" key park cooperation platform, with the Hudian Lingang Kunming Science and Technology City as the core carrier, collaboration will be expanded in depth, and the Science and Technology City aims to add 80,000 square meters of newly signed area in 2026.

During the 15th Five-Year Plan, the Mohan-Moding Cooperation Zone will pursue the main line of "port quality improvement, corridor expansion, industrial agglomeration, and rule alignment," promoting deep integration of logistics, processing, trade, finance, and data in the port area.

According to reports, in 2026 a batch of new standardized factory buildings will be completed and put into operation in the Nanpo International Industrial Cooperation Zone, with 49 new projects planned to start construction, and the zone striving to achieve the customs-sealed trial operation of the enclosed area. After the first phase of the highway port comprehensive upgrading project is fully operational, the freight inspection checkpoint will expand to 12 freight lanes, increasing customs clearance capacity by two to three times. The cooperation zone will be upgraded from a southwest gateway to an important node radiating across the Indian Ocean Rim.

From "single-zone trial" at the time of establishment to today's "four-zone linkage," the results of seven years of cultivation are already written into the whistles of Mohan Port at dawn, the freight trains shuttling along the China-Laos Railway, and the income-growing ledgers of border village residents. The value of an open platform never lies in the number of plaques, but in whether it can truly clear blockages, activate factors of production, and benefit people's lives. This 76-square-kilometer reform test field is advancing in step with the border port over 600 kilometers away, bravely standing at the forefront of the wave of border opening-up, continuously setting a new benchmark for open development facing South and Southeast Asia, and fulfilling its original mission of "testing institutions for the nation and seeking development for the region." (Correspondents: Li Wei, Gou Tingting)