Hubei Province, located in central China, connects the eastern part of Mainland China with the west and links its north to the south. The capital of Hubei is Wuhan, which has been an important transportation hub throughout history. Today, it is praised as the “Chicago of the East” as the city is Mainland China’s key trading port, product distribution centre and transportation and information hub. Hubei is rich in mineral resources, encompassing 130 kinds of minerals, among which phosphate, plaster stone and rock salt rank among the greatest reserves in Mainland China. Water, electricity, natural gas and land are also abundant in supply and low in cost. Hubei has a well-developed modern service industry.

In recent years, the number of ports has been growing steadily, and a comprehensive opening-up pattern efficiently linking water, land and air transportation has formed there. Hubei now has five international ports approved by Mainland China. In addition, Hubei has four comprehensive bonded zones and five bonded logistics centres (type B).Fifteen regulatory sites (original designated ports) have been built for importing various commodities. Hubei is the largest comprehensive transportation hub in central China. Most of Mainland China’s expressways intersect in Hubei and the total length of expressways in operation in Hubei exceed 6,000 kilometres, connecting all cities in the province.

Hubei is one of the nation’s fastest-growing provinces. The Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydroelectric project in the country, is located there. Hubei boasts some of the largest industrial bases in Mainland China, including one of the three largest iron and steel bases, the second-largest automotive production base, the biggest interfacing centre of optical fiber telecommunications in central China, as well as an optoelectronic IT industrial base and a shipping industry base. The province is also home to national industry bases for memory device production, commercial space industry and new energy vehicles and to one of the country’s high and new technologies bases.

In 2019, Hubei’s whole import and export volumes reached RMB394.48bn, a year-on-year increase of 13.2 per cent. In the first half of 2020, Hubei’s whole import and export volumes reached RMB166.5bn, a year-on-year decrease of about two per cent. Hubei has many advantages in facilitating foreign trade. In the hi-tech industrial field, the province is rapidly developing new strategic industries of various fields including information technology, biomedicine and new energy.