Cross-border E-commerce:New Engine for Foreign Trade Development

By Lily Wang

The COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated the digital transition of global foreign trade and Chinas cross-border e-commerce has been growing markedly. Data shows that the total foreign trade carried out through cross-border e-commerce amounted to RMB 1.69 trillion in 2020， up by 31.1% from the previous year.

“Cross-border e-commerce” became a heated topic at the “Two Sessions” for a third consecutive year. The national government keeps expanding the scope of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive experiment zones. Recently， the Ministry of Commerce has worked with another five departments to issue the Notification about the Expansion of Cross-border E-commerce Retail Import Pilot Zones and Strict Implementation of Regulation Requirements. The pilot area of cross-border e-commerce retail imports will extend to all the cities and districts with free trade experiment zones， cross-border e-commerce comprehensive experiment zones， comprehensive bonded areas， import trade promotion innovation demonstration zones， and bonded logistics centers.

Accelerating the development of new business models in the cross-border e-commerce industry is conducive to improving the level of opening-up， promoting the stable growth of foreign trade， and increasing consumption and employment. Cross-border e-commerce has increasingly become a new engine for Chinas foreign trade development.