China's cross-border e-commerce has bucked the trend under the epidemic

Xinhua News Agency, Hefei, April 15 Title: China's cross-border e-commerce has grown against the trend under the epidemic

Xinhua News Agency reporters Wang Haiyue and Ma Shurui

Workers at the Anhui (Shushan) Cross-border E-commerce Industrial Park in Hefei, Anhui Province, are loading quality-packed garments onto trucks. By air and sea, these garments will be sent to overseas warehouses thousands of miles away and sold to North America.

"Despite the impact of the epidemic, our cross-border e-commerce sales have increased year by year in recent years, with sales increasing by 60% year-on-year in the first quarter of this year, and goods are sent out every day." Jiang Yebing, general manager of Anhui Shangyan Trading Co., Ltd., said.

Trucks in the Anhui (Shushan) Cross-border E-commerce Industrial Park are fully loaded with goods and ready to go. Images are provided by respondents

Under the pressure of the epidemic, Anhui, an inland province located in the central region and does not have the advantage of "coastline", has been driven by factors such as the smoother flow of logistics channels such as China-Europe express trains and railway-sea intermodal transport, as well as the more convenient customs clearance policy of the free trade zone, and the development of cross-border e-commerce has not stopped, and it has also become one of the epitomes of the growing cross-border e-commerce in China.

According to the data released by the General Administration of Customs a few days ago, according to preliminary estimates by the customs, China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports in the first quarter were 434.5 billion yuan, an increase of 0.5% year-on-year, of which exports were 310.4 billion yuan, an increase of 2.6%.

In February this year, with the approval of 27 cities and regions such as Ordos to set up cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones, the number of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones in China has reached 132, which is also the sixth expansion of the pilot zone in the past seven years.

"In recent years, as a new form of foreign trade, cross-border e-commerce has shown strong development vitality and played an important role in stabilizing the basic plate of foreign trade and foreign investment and promoting the high-quality development of trade." Li Kuiwen, spokesman for the General Administration of Customs and director of the Department of Statistical Analysis, said at a press conference of the State Council's new office on the 13th.

Hefei is one of the 132 national cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones. In the Anhui (Shushan) cross-border e-commerce industrial park where cross-border e-commerce enterprises are concentrated, Wang Weidong, the head of business, said that since the normalization of "cross-border e-commerce + China-Europe express train" has been implemented, all-cargo flights from Hefei to Chicago and London have been opened, and the cross-border e-commerce industry has grown rapidly.

"In January this year, the park's export list exceeded 480,000 orders, an increase of more than 40 times year-on-year, achieving a strong start." He said.

As a new form of foreign trade with the fastest development speed, the greatest potential and the strongest driving effect, cross-border e-commerce is highly valued throughout China. In the face of many challenges such as rising raw material prices and international logistics difficulties under the epidemic, various localities are also actively releasing measures to optimize the service system and solve the problems of cross-border e-commerce development.

In Dongguan, Guangdong Province, the local arrangement of 50 million yuan of financial funds to subsidize cross-border transportation "land to water transport" cargo owners or bookers; Tianjin simplifies the export customs clearance procedures for enterprises, so that new formats and new models reduce the logistics costs and logistics time of enterprises; Shenzhen makes full use of the "sea, air and rail" diversion mechanism, and actively builds logistics paths such as "China-Europe express trains", "air channels" and "maritime routes" to open up new channels for cross-border transportation between Shenzhen and Hong Kong.

"Through the empowerment of big data, blockchain and other technologies, we provide a full range of services such as cross-border payment, international logistics, customs clearance, and law for settled enterprises, to meet the comprehensive needs of all aspects of the cross-border e-commerce industry chain, and to enhance the digital level of the entire cross-border trade." Sun Wei, deputy director of the Anhui Cross-border E-commerce Innovation Service Center, said that the cross-border e-commerce public service platform in Anhui Province, which was launched on January 1 this year, is providing more and more enterprises with "no closing" online services.

As one of the first enterprises to settle in the service center, Fanhai Group, which specializes in the export of customized fashion products, increased by nearly 40% year-on-year in the first quarter of this year, and its products were sold to more than 200 countries and regions around the world.

"In addition to enjoying convenient services such as resource docking, information transmission, and customs clearance and customs declaration, we also enjoy the local government's preferential treatment of rent reduction and taxation, which is of great help to enterprises to reduce their burden." Xu Jingjing, president of Fanhai Group, said.

Anhui Cross-border E-commerce Innovation Service Center organizes special training for settled enterprises. Images are provided by respondents

According to the data, there are more than 30,000 cross-border e-commerce-related enterprises in China, and the number of registrations is still growing year by year, and the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive test area has been gradually expanded from point to surface and from coast to inland. The huge market players also provide high-quality "soil" for industry innovation, and various new formats and models continue to emerge.

From a national point of view, cross-border e-commerce enterprises to enterprise (B2B) export supervision pilot in an all-round way, domestic goods "selling globally" to add important channels; from a local point of view, the "cross-border e-commerce + live broadcast" model has developed rapidly, allowing more enterprises to use the "outlet" of short video live broadcast to achieve "going to sea".

Qingdao Free Trade Zone promotes industrial development with "bonded stocking + live sales", builds and operates the first cross-border e-commerce bonded live broadcast base in Shandong Province, and creates a record of more than 100 million yuan in live broadcast sales in a single cross-border e-commerce warehouse. Cross-border e-commerce B2B platform Dalongwang Group has laid out live broadcast bases in cross-border e-commerce industrial parks established in Chongqing, Huangshan, Chengde and other places, focusing on cultivating new growth points.

According to the data released by Ai Media Consulting, 2022 will be the first year of China's cross-border live e-commerce, and it is expected that the market size will exceed 100 billion yuan in 2022, with a year-on-year growth rate of up to 210%.

Fu Linghui, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics and director of the Department of Comprehensive Statistics of the National Economy, pointed out: "In the next stage, although the international environment is complex and changeable, the characteristics of the mainland's foreign trade with strong resilience and great potential will not change, the development trend of global cooperation will not change, and the unswerving opening up will not change, and the mainland's foreign trade will still be expected to maintain stable development." ”