The port of northeastern China's Heihe, a border city that faces Russia's Blagoveshchensk across the Heilongjiang River, handled more than 44,000 freight vehicles in the first quarter of 2026, a sharp surge of 79 percent year on year, according to the latest official data released by the Heihe Exit-Entry Border Inspection Station.

The value of imports and exports via the port in the first three months reached 5.93 billion yuan (around 867.43 million U.S. dollars), increasing by 25.6 percent year on year, the data showed.