General

After five years of rapid growth of nearly 10 times in scale, how to maintain the good momentum of cross-border e-commerce development and improve the competitiveness of international trade has become the focus of policy. Since the beginning of the year, the relevant central departments and local governments have successively introduced measures in response to the needs of industry development, from reducing the cost of export return of cross-border e-commerce enterprises, to improving the logistics infrastructure for cross-border e-commerce development, to supporting enterprises to build independent stations and other multidimensional efforts to promote cross-border e-commerce "speed up" and improve the overall competitiveness of foreign trade.

Advantages show that cross-border e-commerce enterprises are busy with orders

"Since January, we have received orders for 1700 mini excavators, an increase of 30% to 40% compared with the same period last year." Yu Hongxiao, the sales manager of the Rhinoceros Heavy Industry brand and the machinery category merchant of Alibaba International Station, said recently that overseas March and April are the peak sales season, so we started to place orders in January and February.

Also not worried about orders are the new energy merchants of Alibaba International Station and Hefei Shengwei Technology Co., Ltd. "At present, the order has been arranged after March, and basically one batch will be sent to overseas warehouses after the production is completed." Zhao Yunqi, the general manager of the company, said that last year the company rented an overseas warehouse with an area of more than 5000 square meters in Germany, which increased the logistics speed to three days in Europe.

Some enterprises that have laid out cross-border e-commerce in the early stage have ushered in a "good start". According to a survey report of the cross-border e-commerce platform Quicksell, nearly 80% of businesses believe that China's overall cross-border export situation is stable and improving in 2023. With the advantages of online transaction and short transaction chain, cross-border e-commerce is favored by international trade enterprises.

According to customs statistics, China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports have increased nearly 10 times in five years. In 2022, China's cross-border e-commerce import and export will reach 2.11 trillion yuan, an increase of 9.8%, 2.1 percentage points higher than the overall international trade import and export growth.

The steady development of cross-border e-commerce is inseparable from national policy support and exploration by all parties. At present, China's comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zones have expanded to 165, covering 31 provinces, including supporting the optimization of the market layout of overseas warehouses, optimizing the filing of the supervision mode of cross-border e-commerce export overseas warehouses, promoting the cross-border e-commerce retail import and return center warehouse, B2B export supervision mode and other measures, which have created good conditions for the development of cross-border e-commerce.

In addition, cross-border e-commerce platforms and related service providers have also launched new service models to further reduce the threshold for enterprises to go to sea. For example, the "hosting service" that has emerged in recent years allows businesses to focus on R&D and supply, and complex logistics, operation, after-sales and other links can be handed over to the platform. At present, AliExpress, Temu and SHEIN have launched similar services in the "Four Dragons", the mainstream cross-border e-commerce platform in China.

Focus on industry needs and deploy more support policies centrally

At the same time as the overall rapid growth of the industry, some international trade enterprises have encountered difficulties in developing cross-border e-commerce business, such as high return and exchange costs, long logistics cycle, lack of professional talents, and great difficulty in opening up the market.

Aiming at the hot issues of concern to foreign trade enterprises, relevant departments and local governments have increased their deployment. The executive meeting of the State Council held on January 28 proposed to promote the further development of cross-border e-commerce and overseas warehouses. Subsequently, the Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Customs and the State Administration of Taxation jointly issued the Announcement on the Tax Policy for Export Returns of Cross-border E-commerce on February 1 to reduce the cost of export returns of cross-border e-commerce enterprises.

"For export cross-border e-commerce enterprises, it is normal to exchange goods due to unsalable products, quality and other factors." Zhu Qiucheng, a special researcher of the Economic and Social E-commerce Research Center and CEO of Ningbo New Oriental Industry and Trade Co., Ltd., said that under the pressure of comprehensive costs such as taxes and shipping charges, enterprises generally choose to discard goods or promote at ultra-low prices. The policies introduced this time, from the tax issues that enterprises are most concerned about, really help enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency, and actually benefit enterprises from tax.

Previously, when deploying the work of stabilizing foreign trade this year, the General Administration of Customs proposed that it would promote the B2B export supervision mode of cross-border e-commerce retail import and return center warehouse, and introduce measures to support enterprises to set up export overseas warehouses. The Ministry of Commerce said that it should promote the further development of cross-border e-commerce, overseas warehouse and other new business forms, make full use of digital means to tap the trade potential and drive the export of small and medium-sized international trading enterprises.

Local governments are also actively exploring and launching innovative measures to facilitate enterprises to carry out cross-border e-commerce business. As the first batch of cross-border e-commerce B2B export pilot customs in China, Beijing Customs has continued to increase its support for enterprises' overseas warehouses. Since the pilot was launched, Beijing Customs has reviewed 18 enterprises with overseas warehouse records and 30 overseas warehouses. The head of Beijing Customs told reporters that this year, with the help of the platform of the Beijing Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone, we will continue to optimize the convenience measures such as "one-time registration", "point-to-point connection", "permit customs transfer", "priority inspection", and "convenient return management".

According to Nanjing Customs, since February 10, the barcode application of cross-border e-commerce retail imported goods has been comprehensively promoted and implemented in 24 sites at 15 ports in Jiangsu Province, which can not only improve the efficiency of customs clearance, but also greatly improve the accuracy of commodity identification and the efficiency of commodity classification identification in the warehousing and tallying process, and effectively reduce the inventory cost.

Hangzhou offered "real gold and silver" to support enterprises to develop cross-border e-commerce business, and proposed to give one-time financial support of no more than 2 million yuan to enterprises that develop cross-border e-commerce export business through independent application stations.

Good for continuous release to promote the development and growth of cross-border e-commerce

With favorable policies and exploration by all parties, the potential of China's cross-border e-commerce is expected to be further released, and will shift from high-speed growth to high-quality growth.

Li Mingtao, president of the Research Institute of the China International Electronic Commerce Center, said that the state and local governments continue to introduce policies to support the development of cross-border e-commerce. First, the policy support shows that the country will continue to vigorously develop cross-border e-commerce, which can cheer for the high-quality development of cross-border e-commerce industry and build industry confidence; Secondly, continue to improve the development environment of cross-border e-commerce in China through specific support policies, so that cross-border e-commerce enterprises can enjoy real policy dividends.

In Li Mingtao's view, China's cross-border e-commerce export industry has entered a transformation period of high-quality development from a period of rapid growth due to the influence of comprehensive factors. The industry prospects are generally good, and the development space is still large. However, he also pointed out that we should grasp the characteristics and trends of the development of cross-border e-commerce at the current stage in a timely manner, give full play to the combined role of government guidance, platform development and enterprise practice, so that cross-border e-commerce can truly become an important fulcrum to promote the domestic and international double cycle in China.

"Give full play to the enabling role of cross-border e-commerce in diversified market development, brand building, guiding innovation and green development, and make new contributions to promoting the 'integration of data and reality' in the field of foreign trade and building a trade power," said Li Mingtao.

Lv Daliang, a spokesman of the General Administration of Customs, said at the previous press conference of the State Administration of Customs that in recent years, cross-border e-commerce has developed rapidly, and the country has successively issued relevant support policies, and the advantages and potential of cross-border e-commerce are expected to be further released.