重磅：亿邦智库×连连数字联合发布《外贸新增长—新兴市场B2B商业机会洞察》

Overall, the center of gravity in foreign trade growth is shifting toward emerging markets. General readers should focus on opportunities in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa.

1. Demand: Emerging markets are importing at nearly twice the pace of developed markets. Procurement is moving from low price toward complete product kits, reliable delivery, and upgraded standards, with orders becoming more fragmented and replenishment more frequent.

2. Supply and policy: China's full-category manufacturing capabilities and the fact that intermediate goods exports have for the first time exceeded half of total exports, together with policy dividends such as RCEP, the Belt and Road Initiative, and zero tariffs for 53 African countries, support the expansion of overseas business.

3. Regional opportunities: Southeast Asia offers opportunities in electronics, home appliances, and infrastructure energy; the Middle East in engineering equipment, auto parts, and consumer goods; Latin America in the automotive aftermarket; and Africa in power and new energy, building materials, and daily necessities.

4. Practical reminders: Transaction challenges generally center on certification, exchange rates, payment arrival cycles, and local collection. These can be mitigated through local accounts, compliant settlement, and real-time currency conversion to shorten capital turnover time.

From a brand perspective, emerging markets are not simply low-price markets; they represent brand and product opportunities driven by demand upgrades.

1. Consumer trends: Procurement standards have shifted from a single focus on low price to complete product kits, reliable delivery, and upgraded standards. Orders are becoming fragmented and replenishment high-frequency, so brands need to improve product consistency and on-demand replenishment capabilities.

2. Regional product opportunities: Southeast Asia is seeing consumption expansion in home appliances, 3C electronics, and household goods; the Middle East offers opportunities in engineering equipment, building materials, auto parts, and adapted consumer goods; Latin America has over 85 million vehicles, with a large aftermarket for brake components and other parts; Africa is seeing rising demand for power, new energy, building materials, and daily necessities.

3. Product development and localization: China's supply chain offers advantages in full-category coverage, fast sampling, and low minimum order quantities, making it easier to adapt products to regional certifications and local regulations.

4. Channels and pricing: In the Middle East, channel-based and project-based procurement operate as distinct systems. Distributor payment terms, local currency fluctuations, and tariff accumulation directly affect pricing and channel cash flow. Local collection and compliant settlement should be integrated into channel management.

Emerging-market B2B represents clear incremental growth. Sellers can enter by leveraging policy dividends and category opportunities across four regions.

1. Policy highlights: Trade with RCEP members contributed 44.4% to the year's foreign trade growth. Imports and exports with Belt and Road countries accounted for 50.9% of total foreign trade. The China-ASEAN FTA 3.0 has been signed, and zero tariffs will be applied to 53 African countries with diplomatic ties starting May 1, 2026, lowering entry costs for some markets.

2. Growth markets and consumer demand: Southeast Asia has three simultaneous demand drivers: industrial investment, consumption expansion, and infrastructure/energy. The Middle East's non-oil economy drives project-based and channel-based procurement. Latin America's automotive aftermarket is expanding. Africa is seeing strong demand for power, new energy, building materials, and daily necessities. Procurement is fragmented and high-frequency, making reliable delivery more important than low price alone.

3. Risk warnings: Fragmented country-specific rules, destination-country certifications such as SASO/SABER and ECAS, settlement volatility between local currencies and the US dollar, tight dollar quotas, frozen bank cards from informal currency exchange, and long distributor payment terms that lock up capital.

4. Responses and lessons: Case-study merchants have improved collection efficiency through local collection accounts, direct multi-currency local receipts, 7×24 real-time currency conversion, and compliant settlement. Middle East procurement agents have upgraded into channel partners using these tools, offering a reference for capital chains and cooperation models.

Demand from emerging markets presents clear order opportunities for Chinese factories, and smooth payments directly affect production capacity and R&D investment.

1. Production and design requirements: Southeast Asia's electronics, automotive, and new energy production lines; the Middle East's building materials and PV/storage sectors; Latin America's automotive aftermarket parts; and Africa's power and infrastructure projects all have specific product specifications and local certification requirements. China's full-category industrial and cluster advantages, with fast sampling and low minimum order quantities, allow quick responses.

2. Business opportunities: In the first half of the year, intermediate goods exports grew 29.2% and exceeded half of total exports for the first time, indicating that more factories have the chance to embed themselves in cross-border industrial chains. Fragmented orders and high-frequency replenishment require flexible production and reliable delivery capabilities.

3. Digital and e-commerce insights: Case-study manufacturers have shortened payment cycles through local collection, real-time currency conversion, and unified multi-currency management, freeing up capital for R&D and capacity expansion. Factories should integrate digital payments and financial compliance into their foreign trade operations to improve cash flow and support larger orders.

The expansion of emerging-market B2B is driving demand for cross-border services, particularly in fund movement and compliance.

1. Trends: Developing countries are importing at roughly twice the pace of developed countries. Demand upgrades and fragmented orders expose service providers to more SMEs and multi-region transaction scenarios.

2. Client pain points: Clients commonly face fragmented country-specific rules, multi-currency settlement and exchange-rate volatility, long bank arrival cycles, insufficient buyer dollar quotas, frozen cards from payment agency and currency exchange, and the need for tax compliance records. Certification and acceptance milestones also vary by region.

3. Solutions: LianLian provides local collection accounts, direct local-currency receipts, 7×24 real-time currency conversion, and centralized management of collection, conversion, and payment. Local teams and digital records support tax compliance. Case studies show this solution improves capital turnover and order execution efficiency, and it can be replicated in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa.

Emerging-market B2B transactions place higher demands on platform capabilities. Payment and fund services are becoming critical infrastructure alongside platform matching.

1. Business demands on platforms: Sellers in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa commonly face local collection, compliant settlement, exchange-rate hedging, and capital turnover challenges. Platforms that integrate these capabilities can improve transaction completion rates.

2. Latest platform moves: LianLian Digital has formed a closed-loop payment platform with local accounts, direct multi-currency receipts, real-time currency conversion, and online audit trails. It has also developed a channel-partner model to help procurement agents compliantly connect buyers and sellers.

3. Operations and management: Platforms need to support merchants in centrally managing collection, conversion, and payments, provide 7×24 services, and maintain local teams. Real-time settlement accelerates capital return and reduces capital occupation.

4. Risk mitigation: Facing certification requirements, dollar quotas, frozen cards from informal exchange, and third-party payment risk controls, platforms should emphasize compliant transaction audit trails, tax documentation, and local corporate account collection to help merchants isolate risk.

The report reveals structural changes in foreign trade growth, and the interaction of emerging markets, China's supply chain, and policy institutions merits attention.

1. New industrial trends: The center of gravity of global trade is shifting toward emerging markets, with developing countries importing at roughly twice the pace of developed countries. Procurement behavior is moving from low-price orientation to reliable delivery and standard upgrades, and fragmented orders with high-frequency replenishment have become the norm.

2. Upgrading of China's supply chain: Manufacturing value-added accounts for about 30% of the global total, and intermediate goods exports have exceeded half of total exports for the first time. This indicates that China's exports are extending from finished goods to intermediate links in industrial chains. Digital-industrial integration and industrial clusters support rapid-response capabilities.

3. Institutional and policy implications: Arrangements such as RCEP, the China-ASEAN FTA 3.0, and zero tariffs for African countries have created institutional dividends. However, fragmented regional rules, certification, exchange-rate, and settlement barriers still constitute transaction costs, requiring more refined regulatory and financial service support.

4. Business model observations: Four case studies show that cross-border payment solutions combining local collection accounts, direct local-currency receipts, real-time currency conversion, and compliant audit trails are key to closing the emerging-market B2B loop. Payment companies can use this to build platform-based and channel-based business cooperation models.