Zhang Li, deputy director of the Department of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Commerce: We will continue to improve the cross-border e-commerce support policy

Source: People's Daily Original manuscript

People's Daily Beijing, September 4 (Reporters He Xu and Xu Weina) From September 2 to 7, the 2021 China International Fair for Trade in Services (hereinafter referred to as the "Service Trade Fair") was held in Beijing. During the service trade fair, Zhang Li, deputy director of the Department of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Commerce, said at the cross-border e-commerce forum of the "2021 China E-commerce Conference" that China's foreign trade hit a record high from January to July this year. Among them, cross-border e-commerce continues to maintain a good momentum and has become a prominent fulcrum in the overall rapid growth of foreign trade.

Zhang Li introduced that since the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Commerce, together with various localities and departments, has vigorously grasped the implementation of foreign trade policies, and solidly promoted the key work of foreign trade excellence, trade industry integration, and trade unimpeded.

The reporter learned that from January to July, China's import and export, export and import scale hit a record high in the same period of history, an increase of 24.5%, 24.5%, 24.4% year-on-year, and the growth rate was a new high in 10 years. At the same time, the new momentum of foreign trade development has continued to increase. In the first half of the year, the growth rate of cross-border e-commerce reached 28.6% year-on-year, and cross-border e-commerce exports increased by 44.1% year-on-year.

Zhang Li said that the good performance of foreign trade is mainly due to the major strategic achievements made by China's overall epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, as well as the continuous effectiveness of a series of foreign trade policies, which is also the result of the joint efforts of various localities and departments and the majority of foreign trade enterprises.

Zhang Li pointed out that while imports and exports are growing rapidly, we should also be soberly aware that the current global epidemic situation is still evolving, the risks of the industrial chain supply chain are increasing, the politicization of trade issues is intensifying, and there is great uncertainty in economic recovery. The Ministry of Commerce will continue to pay attention to the changes in the macro environment and the difficulties of micro subjects in the development of foreign trade, continue to promote the "three major plans" of excellent entry and excellent exit, trade industry integration and unimpeded trade, and strive to complete the goal and task of stable and qualitative increase in quantity and quality throughout the year.

"New formats and new models can well stimulate the vitality of foreign trade subjects, expand the space for foreign trade development, improve operational efficiency, stabilize the industrial chain supply chain, and realize the integrated development of industrial digitalization and trade digitalization." Zhang Li believes that accelerating the development of new formats and models is conducive to promoting the high-quality development of trade, cultivating new advantages in international economic cooperation and competition, and playing an important role in building a new development pattern for services.

"In recent years, the development of new formats and models has been very rapid, and the results have been remarkable. Among them, cross-border e-commerce is a new form of foreign trade with the fastest development speed, the greatest potential and the strongest driving effect. Zhang Li introduced that the scale of cross-border e-commerce in China has increased by nearly 10 times in 5 years, and the scale of market procurement trade has increased by 5 times in 6 years. There are more than 1500 foreign trade comprehensive service enterprises, more than 1900 overseas warehouses, and about 130 bonded maintenance projects for processing trade.

It is understood that since 2015, the State Council has set up 105 cross-border e-commerce comprehensive test areas in 5 batches, basically covering the whole country, forming a development pattern of land and sea linkage, east-west two-way mutual benefit. In Zhang Li's view, the institutional mechanism to support the development of new foreign trade formats still needs to be improved, and it is necessary to strengthen macro guidance and improve the top-level design, and market players and localities generally hope that the state and government will issue relevant guiding policy documents and more powerful support policies.

In this context, the General Office of the State Council recently issued the "Opinions on Accelerating the Development of New Formats and Models of Foreign Trade", which further released the major benefits in the field of foreign trade formats and model innovation.

Zhang Li said that in the next specific work, the Ministry of Commerce will continue to improve the support policies for cross-border e-commerce with relevant localities and departments, study and formulate new policies such as intellectual property protection guidelines, return and exchange management to facilitate cross-border e-commerce import and export, encourage the construction of overseas warehouses, improve the level of digital intelligence of overseas warehouses, promote small and medium-sized and micro enterprises to borrow ships to go to sea, drive domestic brands and double products, expand market space, support the development and growth of foreign trade segmentation service platforms, encourage e-commerce enterprises to deepen the vertical market, and take the new road of specialization.