It is reported that China will set up more cross-border e-commerce pilot zones to facilitate trade and boost China's global competitiveness, under a decision made at a State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang.
The meeting decided to extend the success of such zones to more cities with good infrastructure and strong trade and e-commerce development potential. The State Council set up the original initiative in Hangzhou in 2015 before it was expanded to another 12 cities, including Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing, starting in early 2016.
Some practices are going national, like online comprehensive service platforms with customs clearance, logistics, tax refunds, payment, fundraising and risk control services, and offline industrial parks with whole-industrial-chain services.
"We need to enable the healthy development of cross-border e-commerce and speed up the growth of new engines, making the foreign trade sector more adaptive to new circumstances and better endowed with new advantages," Li said. "Prospects for cross-border e-commerce are very bright."
The total volume of foreign trade via cross-border e-commerce in the 13 zones hit 163.7 billion yuan in 2016, up by more than 100 percent year-on-year. Over 400 third-party platforms were set up and 20,000 cross-border e-commerce trade companies established in the zones.
The government will streamline administration, enhance compliance oversight and improve service. Developing the value chain also helps, including overseas storage facilities covering key countries and markets and logistics networks. (Source: China Daily)
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