The State Council recently issued the “Reply on Approving the Establishment of Comprehensive Pilot Zones for Cross-border E-commerce in 27 Cities and Regions including Ordos” (hereinafter referred to as the “Reply”), and the scale of pilot fields for cross-border e-commerce pilots has continued to expand. After this expansion, what is the pattern of my country’s cross-border e-commerce comprehensive test area? How to promote the high-quality development of the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone?
Extensive pilot coverage, prominent regional focus, and rich development gradients
New business formats and new models such as cross-border e-commerce are a vital force for the development of my country’s foreign trade and an important trend in the development of international trade. The Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to the development of new trade formats such as cross-border e-commerce. In July 2021, the General Office of the State Council issued the “Opinions on Accelerating the Development of New Formats and New Models of Foreign Trade”, clearly proposing to solidly promote the construction of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones.
The so-called cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone is a comprehensive reform pilot that provides replcable and popularizable experience for promoting the development of cross-border e-commerce in my country through institutional innovation, management innovation, service innovation and coordinated development. It is necessary to take the lead in the technical standards, business processes, supervision models and information construction of cross-border e-commerce transactions, payment, logistics, customs clearance, tax rebates, foreign exchange settlement and other aspects.
Hong Yong, an associate researcher at the Institute of Electronic Commerce of the Ministry of Commerce, said that the State Council had set up 105 cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones in 5 batches, covering 30 provinces and 27 newly approved areas this time. So far, my country has established cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones in 132 cities and regions. The further expansion of coverage will provide stronger support for the innovative development of cross-border e-commerce.
Gao Feng, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, said that in terms of layout, there are three main characteristics: First, the coverage is wide. It has basically covered the whole country, forming a development pattern of linkage between land and sea and two-way mutual assistance between east and west. The second is regional focus. Realize full coverage of major foreign trade provinces such as Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and municipalities directly under the Central Government such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing. Third, the development gradient is rich. There are both border and coastal cities and inland hub cities; there are cities with obvious advantages in foreign trade, and cities with outstanding industrial characteristics. The cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone will play a more active role in promoting the high-level opening of the region to the outside world.
“Cross-border e-commerce is a new form of foreign trade with the fastest development, the greatest potential and the strongest driving effect, and it is still in a period of rapid development.” said the person in charge of the Department of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Commerce.
Post time: Apr-10-2022