How to connect the Asia-Pacific supply chain

Asia-Pacific eyes are once again focused on China. The 33rd APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting is about to be held in Shenzhen, marking an important moment for APEC’s “Year of China”. Looking back on this year, what common concerns are emerging in the exchanges and discussions among the 21 member economies? Amid changes, what development path is Asia-Pacific looking for?

We specially customized our intelligent interview partner Xiaoda for this report. We integrated APEC-related public texts, the opinions and data of various economies into the special knowledge base, and compared the changes in concerns between the lines to find the connection between the issues. The reporter and Xiaoda started from the common concerns of APEC to find answers for the Asia-Pacific and see new possibilities.

Trade connects the Asia-Pacific and affects the concerns of all parties in APEC. This year, what new issues have you raised regarding the exchange of goods? Today, we follow the flow of containers and find answers along the way.

CCTV reporter Liu Baixuan: About half of the global trade in goods is closely related to APEC member economies. We gave this year’s outcome document, the 2026 APEC Trade Ministers’ Meeting Suzhou Joint Statement, to our portable smart interview partner Xiaoda to sort it out. Xiaoda, in this year’s discussion on international trade, what are you concerned about?

Xiaoda: I found that everyone not only has expectations but also worries. The most frequently appearing term in the Suzhou Statement is "supply chain", along with phrases such as "supply chain challenges," "supply chain interruptions," and "supply chain bottlenecks." Facing the risk of supply chain fragmentation, how to keep the supply chain smooth and stable is becoming a common concern of APEC member economies.

In the past two days, Shenzhen Port has caught up with the peak cargo flow at the end of the year. Tang Lingli is engaged in the international freight forwarding business. When we interviewed her, she received an emergency call: a Vietnamese customer encountered a "no-stop", which means that the planned cargo ship was temporarily unavailable.

Tang Lingli, Meibang Liantong International Logistics and Freight Forwarder: My customer has 8 containers stored at the terminal, and the storage fee for a day is more than 500 US dollars, so I need to help her find a ship now.

Tang Lingli and her team listed the transshipment plan for the customer. After several discussions, transshipment in Shenzhen was the best solution.

From the perspective of port layout, Shekou Port to the west of Shenzhen has various feeder ships coming and going, and Southeast Asia routes are densely populated; while Yantian Port to the east is home to maritime "Big Macs", focusing on European and American ocean routes. One east and one west just catch the goods flowing back and forth in the Asia-Pacific region.

Tang Lingli, Meibang Linkong International Logistics and Freight Forwarder: A ship will arrive in Shenzhen from Vietnam tomorrow. After docking for 6 hours, it will be immediately connected to our Yantian Port and taken to the United States by speedboat.

Like Tang Lingli, many logistics companies now regard Shenzhen as an important stop for global freight: in the first three quarters of this year, the volume of goods transferred here hit a record high, which is equivalent to the port throughput of Canada for an entire year. As more and more containers use Shenzhen as an interchange station for Asia-Pacific freight, new demands for efficiency improvements have emerged.

Lin Wendong, person in charge of Shenzhen's external cargo shipping: Every time you pass through a node during transit, you may have to go through a formality. This is basically the case in every country in the world. But sometimes I feel particularly anxious when I encounter a rush for shipping and are in a hurry to deliver.

How to make cross-port cargo transfer faster? During the interview, the reporter discovered that a new attempt had begun. Shenzhen has opened such a green channel for customs cargo transfer between the two ports. It takes more than an hour for trucks to travel one way. It passes through 4 sections of highways and expressways along the way, and the distance is about 60 kilometers. As the spatial distance is shortened, how can process barriers be broken down? The breakthrough lies in data.

Pan Feng, deputy director of the Shenzhen Customs Port Supervision Office: Our 60-kilometer green channel for international logistics transfer is actually a data channel for international logistics transfer. We have gathered more than a dozen types of data such as cargo clearance, port operations, and road transportation, allowing them to circulate and even go to the front of the goods.

It is precisely because of this that a brand-new cargo transit and customs clearance model has also been launched in Shenzhen.

Cai Haiping, Chief of the Third Supervision Section of Qianhai Comprehensive Bonded Zone of Shekou Customs: It used to be like a relay race, and each link may have to go through formalities; now it is a straight-line race, and we "one shot to the end". When entering Yantian Port or Shekou Port, we only need to go through all the cargo transfer procedures at one time.

Now, on average, goods worth millions of yuan flow in both directions and are transferred across ports between Yantian Port and Shekou Port every day.

Lin Wendong, person in charge of Shenzhen’s outsourced cargo shipping: By saving transit time, our logistics costs can also be saved by about one-third.

The 60-kilometer road is like a magnet, linking efficient transit and attracting goods from around the world to gather here. Just this year, on the west side of the road, the super express hub of global express delivery giant DHL was put into use; on the east side of the road, a large hub warehouse of the world's leading e-commerce platform Amazon is also growing.

On the 60-kilometer journey, new goods are gathering at an accelerated pace. When the reporter came to this logistics warehouse, staff member Chen Kunpeng was helping customers sort out goods. He called himself a "container platter master." The goods that had just been unloaded were loaded into another container in the blink of an eye.

Chen Kunpeng, staff member of Yuehai Global Supply Chain: The goods in this cabinet are mice made in Thailand that have just arrived from Shekou Port, combined with keyboards made in Vietnam and chassis made in China, and then shipped to customers in the United States through Yantian Port.

A container is equivalent to a condensed version of the Asia-Pacific supply chain; and on this import and export plan, Thailand, Vietnam, Dongguan, Zhongshan, China, the United States, and Canada are densely written with departure and destination places. The reporter noticed that they have a common shipping method - LCL.

Xiang Chunli, head of operations at Maersk Supply Chain Management (Guangdong): The use of LCL saves a lot of costs, such as the sharing of sea freight, and then exports to overseas markets.

CCTV reporter Liu Baixuan: The goods come from different countries, meet together in Shenzhen, and go to their destination. Xiaoda, help me scan these containers and see if there are any new findings?

Xiaoda: Clothing bags and bags produced by the six APEC member economies are combined with Chinese home appliances and go to North America; high-value AI components, which have seen a surge in demand this year, are combined with Chinese consumer electronics products and sent to Southeast Asia for processing and distribution in an average of more than a dozen shifts a day.

Sun Huijun, deputy secretary-general of Shenzhen Logistics and Supply Chain Management Association: Parts and finished products from different countries and origins can be efficiently transferred and reorganized on demand in Shenzhen. The nearly 60 kilometers of green channels for cargo transfer are equivalent to connecting the Asia-Pacific industrial chain and supply chain.

A smooth supply chain affects global trade. When routes are adjusted, orders change, and goods from different Asia-Pacific countries need to flow, we see one thing that China is doing: making the supply chain more flexible to cope with challenges, with roads to transfer and boxes to put together, so that the pie of global business becomes bigger and bigger.