Beneath bright studio lights, Mohamed Issa Omar speaks fluently to the camera, introducing a sleek pair of AI-powered glasses to viewers tuning in from across the globe.
Omar is in the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone in Ezhou, Central China's Hubei province. It is past midnight in the United States, but orders still pour in as the Somali influencer and CEO of Ezhou Shahai Business Bridge Trading Co breaks down the product's features, such as music playback, hands-free calls and one-click photography, tailored carefully to match overseas consumer habits.
"I shifted from engineering to e-commerce back in 2021," Omar recalls. He started building a social media presence and amassed over 1 million followers across Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. "That's when I saw the future: selling products online, and no place does it better than China."
What drew this foreign entrepreneur deep into China's inland province of Hubei is not just the allure of the world's most dynamic e-commerce ecosystem, but also its strategic logistics advantages.
"The Chinese e-commerce ecosystem is massive, robust and offers endless possibilities — far more than what you'd find abroad," Omar explains. "About 80 percent of the products in our warehouse originate from China. Being here, at the source, is the ultimate advantage."
His confidence is also rooted in Ezhou's unparalleled advantages in transportation. "We have Ezhou Huahu International Airport, one of China's largest cargo airports, on our doorstep," he says, noting that fast shipping serves as a key factor in today's cross-border e-commerce business landscape.
The speed of China's logistics evolution continues to impress him."Three or four years ago, delivery times were longer. But now, China has mastered rapid manufacturing and lightning-fast shipping. Everything is accelerated."
A keen observer of global platforms, Omar notes an efficiency gap."On Douyin, you get your order in three to four days. TikTok used to take a week, but now it's catching up to three days — driven by Chinese sellers pushing for speed."
For Omar, operating from China is not just about speed, but about forging ties between Chinese suppliers and global markets.
"The way Chinese merchants market and do business online is fundamentally different from that of their foreign counterparts. It must be a balanced fusion," he says."Foreigners need to understand Chinese marketing strategies, and Chinese businesses must adapt their systems to global mindsets. That's the synergy we create."
This philosophy is why he insists on having Chinese partners to build a powerful e-commerce platform."Success in this industry requires collaboration. Foreigners like me bring the international perspective, while our Chinese partners provide the local expertise and access to the supply chain."
His daily sales reflect this successful fusion. "It depends on livestreams. Right now, we get 40 to 50 orders per stream, and our prerecorded videos consistently drive sales — at least 100 units of our top-selling AI glasses every day."
Omar's success story is a microcosm of Hubei's booming cross-border e-commerce scene, anchored by Ezhou's strategic rise. Since the launch of the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone in Ezhou in April 2025, the park has attracted 258 enterprises, including top sellers from TikTok and Amazon, driving total trade value to $310 million.
This inland opening-up miracle is further amplified by the Qipanzhou Comprehensive Bonded Zone in Huangshi, Hubei. Leveraging its proximity to Ezhou Huahu International Airport, it has built a multimodal transport system covering road, rail, water and air. By establishing "forward cargo stations", this region has revolutionized logistics, allowing goods to be declared locally and flown directly from the airport.
The results are transformative. The Qipanzhou Comprehensive Bonded Zone saw its foreign trade value soar to 10.74 billion yuan ($1.58 billion) in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 107 percent, jumping from zero to a 10-billion-level player in just two years, local data revealed.
For Omar, the future is limitless."In the next five years, our business will boom beyond expectations. The scale is already growing faster than I imagined. After two to three years of testing and slow growth, we are poised for massive expansion."
With China's inland regions deepening their opening-up endeavors, foreign entrepreneurs like Omar are no longer outliers but pioneers. In the studios of Ezhou, with a world map of cargo routes overhead, they are turning Hubei's inland advantage into a global edge, proving that China's high-standard opening-up is no longer exclusive to coastal regions, but is flourishing steadily in inland areas.
XINHUA
