The proposal and implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative have continuously pushed the inland regions of northwest China to the forefront of openness. However, the openness of the northwest region still faces many challenges. Since the joint construction of the Belt and Road, the open development of northwest China has shown six major characteristics: the total value of imports and exports is relatively small, but its proportion in the national total is continuously increasing; openness to the outside world is deepening, and participating countries are gradually becoming important locations for foreign trade; the degree of trade dependence has increased, but there are significant differences among provinces and regions; the level of actual foreign investment utilization is unstable and inconsistent with the national development trend; the scale of foreign contracting projects fluctuates, and its proportion in the national total has decreased; the structure of foreign trade products is single, and the position in the value chain division of labor is not high. In the new era, facing new opportunities and challenges, the basic path for northwest China to deepen its open development in the future lies in: continuously expanding the fields of cooperation and promoting institutional openness; achieving a higher level of openness through “ threefold openness”; cultivating regional central cities to enhance synergy with major regional strategies; deepening regional cooperation and jointly building overseas industrial parks with the eastern regions; seizing the opportunities of the digital economy to continuously reduce trade costs.