The year 2021 marks the 20th anniversary of China’s accession to World Trade Organizations (WTO). On December 11, 2001, China formally became the 143rd member of WTO. Since China joined WTO, it has continuously expanded opening up, which has brought a new wave of its development and activated the world economy. 

Over the past 20 years of China’s accession to WTO, Sichuan's foreign trade grew ever stronger on a constantly increasing scale. The import and export volumes increased from 32.48 billion yuan in 2001 to 808.19 billion yuan in 2020, with an increase of 23.9 times and average annual growth of 16.8%.

Since China's accession to the WTO, Sichuan's foreign trade scale has shown a rapid growth momentum. In particular, after 2008, with the acceleration of Sichuan's undertaking of processing trade industry in East China and the rapid development of all-round opening-up channels for waterway, land route, airway and railway, a large number of large enterprises and projects have settled in Sichuan, driving the rapid growth of Sichuan's foreign trade.   Sichuan's foreign trade scale exceeded 300 billion yuan in 2011, 600 billion yuan in 2019, and 800 billion yuan in 2020. From January to November this year, Sichuan's foreign trade scale reached 853.86 billion yuan, an increase of 16.2%, which exceeded that of 2020.

Endogenous power increased significantly. During the 20 years, the proportion of the trade of private enterprises in Sichuan increased significantly, which increased from 9.7% in 2001 to 22.8% in 2020 in the overall import and export proportion. From January to November this year, the proportion further increased to 27.1%.

Trading partners were more diversified. From 2001 to 2020, the number of countries and regions with trade exchanges with Sichuan increased from 170 to 181. Meanwhile, Sichuan's import and export to countries along the "Belt and Road" achieved annual average growth of 18.1%, 1.3 percentage points higher than the overall annual average growth.

The export structure continuously upgraded. During the 20 years, the export of mechanical and electrical products in Sichuan achieved average annual growth of 11.2%, and the overall export proportion increased from 19.3% in 2001 to 87.8% in 2020.  From January to November this year, Sichuan exported 420.18 billion yuan of mechanical and electrical products, an increase of 13.4% and accounting for 82.7% of Sichuan's total export value of the same period.