n recent years, the scale of China’s cross-border e-commerce import and export has continued to grow rapidly, becoming a new bright spot in the development of foreign trade. The Ministry of Commerce and other six departments recently jointly issued the notice on expanding the pilot of cross border e-commerce retail import and strictly implementing the regulatory requirements (hereinafter referred to as the notice)《 The notice specifies that the pilot of cross-border e-commerce retail import will be extended to all cities (and regions) where the pilot Free Trade Zone, cross-border e-commerce comprehensive test zone, comprehensive bonded zone, import trade promotion innovation demonstration zone and bonded logistics center (type b) are located. What will be the impact of the expansion of the pilot area, and what is the current development trend of cross-border e-commerce? The reporter conducted an interview.
China’s cross-border e-commerce retail import scale has exceeded 100 billion yuan
Cross border e-commerce retail import is not far away from us. Domestic consumers purchase overseas goods through cross-border e-commerce platform, which constitutes cross-border e-commerce retail import behavior. According to statistics, in 2020, China’s cross-border e-commerce retail import scale has exceeded 100 billion yuan.
The development of new formats cannot do without the strong support of relevant policies. Since 2016, China has explored the transitional policy arrangement of “temporary supervision according to personal belongings” for cross-border e-commerce retail imports. Since then, the transitional period has been extended twice to the end of 2017 and 2018. In November 2018, the Ministry of Commerce and other six departments issued the “notice on improving the import supervision of cross-border e-commerce retail”, which made it clear that in 37 cities, such as Beijing, the import goods of cross-border e-commerce retail will be supervised according to personal use, and the first import license approval, registration or filing requirements will not be implemented, ensuring the continuous and stable supervision arrangement after the transition period. In 2020, the pilot will be further expanded to 86 cities and the whole island of Hainan.
“Supervision of imported articles for personal use” means simpler procedures and faster circulation. Driven by the pilot, China’s cross-border e-commerce retail imports grew rapidly. Gao Feng, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, said that since the pilot of cross-border e-commerce retail import was launched in November 2018, all departments and localities have actively explored and continuously improved the policy system, standardized in development and developed in standardization. At the same time, the risk prevention and control and supervision system is gradually improving, and the supervision is powerful and effective during and after the event, which has the conditions for replication and promotion in a wider range.
“The expansion of the pilot scope is mainly to better meet the people’s growing needs for a better life and promote the better development of cross-border e-commerce import.” Gaofeng said that in the future, the cities where the relevant regions are located can carry out online bonded import business as long as they meet the requirements of customs supervision, so as to facilitate enterprises to flexibly adjust their business layout according to the development needs, facilitate consumers to purchase cross-border goods more conveniently, play a decisive role of the market in the allocation of resources, and focus on strengthening supervision during and after the event.
With the accelerating pace of consumption upgrading, the demand of Chinese consumers for high-quality imported goods is increasing day by day. More consumer groups hope to buy all over the world at home, and the development space of cross-border e-commerce retail import is broader. In the next step, the Ministry of Commerce will work with relevant departments to urge the pilot cities to strictly implement the requirements and promote the healthy and sustainable development of cross-border e-commerce retail import norms.
Intensive introduction of supporting policies to create a good environment for rapid development
In March this year, the first China cross border e-commerce fair was held in Fuzhou, attracting a total of 2363 enterprises to participate, covering 33 cross-border e-commerce platforms around the world. According to incomplete statistics, a total of over US $3.5 billion of intention transactions were reached in this exhibition. Customs data show that in 2020, China’s cross-border e-commerce imports and exports will reach 1.69 trillion yuan, up 31.1% year on year. Cross border e-commerce has gradually become a new engine for high-quality development of foreign trade.
Zhang Jianping, director of the Research Center for regional economic cooperation of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, said that in recent years, cross-border e-commerce has maintained a double-digit growth rate and made a significant contribution to China’s foreign trade development. Especially in 2020, China’s foreign trade will realize a V-shaped reversal under severe challenges, which has something to do with the development of cross-border e-commerce. Cross border e-commerce, with its unique advantages of breaking through time and space constraints, low cost and high efficiency, has become an important choice for enterprises to carry out international trade and a pacesetter for foreign trade innovation and development, playing a positive role for foreign trade enterprises in coping with the impact of the epidemic.
The intensive introduction of supporting policies has also created a good environment for the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce.
In 2020, there will be 46 new cross-border e-commerce comprehensive test zones in China, and the number of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive test zones will be expanded to 105. The Ministry of Commerce, together with relevant departments, adheres to the principle of encouraging innovation, inclusiveness and prudence, encourages cross-border e-commerce comprehensive test zone to carry out service, format and mode innovation, supports the integrated design, production, marketing, trading, after-sales and other cross-border e-commerce chain development, and speeds up the construction of a new opening-up area. All localities take the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive test zone as the starting point, build offline industrial parks, actively attract leading enterprises into the zone, and drive the surrounding gathering of upstream and downstream supporting enterprises. At present, more than 330 industrial parks have been built in each cross-border e-commerce comprehensive test zone, which has promoted the employment of more than 3 million people.
In the aspect of customs clearance, the General Administration of Customs has carried out innovative cross-border e-commerce B2B (enterprise to enterprise) export pilot projects, and newly established cross-border e-commerce B2B direct export (9710) and cross-border e-commerce export overseas warehouse (9810) trade modes. Now it has carried out pilot projects in 22 customs offices directly under the General Administration of customs, including Beijing, to promote the innovative achievements of cross-border e-commerce supervision from B2C (enterprise to individual) to B2B, and provide supporting customs facilitation measures, The pilot enterprises can apply the customs clearance facilitation measures such as “one-time registration, one-point docking, priority inspection, allowing customs transfer and facilitating return”.
“Under the background of the pilot export supervision by the customs and the accelerated construction of comprehensive pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce, cross-border e-commerce will continue to flourish under the encouragement of policies and environment, injecting new vitality into the transformation and upgrading of China’s foreign trade.” Zhang Jianping said.
Digital technology is widely used in all aspects, and the supervision mode needs to keep pace with the times
The wide application of cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain and other digital technologies in all aspects of cross-border trade has driven the continuous transformation and upgrading of cross-border e-commerce.
Wang Xiaohong, Vice Minister of Information Department of China Center for international economic exchange, said that this new digital foreign trade mode is based on the full link cross-border trade platform, forming an ecosystem integrating producers, suppliers, retailers, consumers, logistics, finance and government regulatory departments. It includes not only cross-border commodity circulation, but also related supporting services such as logistics, finance, information, payment, settlement, credit investigation, finance and taxation, efficient comprehensive foreign trade services such as customs clearance, foreign exchange collection and tax refund, as well as new regulatory methods and new international rules system with information, data and intelligence.
“It is precisely because of the super large-scale market advantages, together with the industrial promotion mechanism and inclusive supervision mode, that China’s cross-border e-commerce enterprises have grown rapidly, and their scale and strength have leaped rapidly.” Wang Xiaohong said, however, it should also be noted that cross-border e-commerce is still in the initial stage of development, supporting facilities such as warehousing, transportation, distribution, after-sales service, experience, payment and settlement still need to be improved, regulatory methods also need to keep pace with the times, and both standardization and development should be adhered to.
At the same time of expanding the pilot of cross-border e-commerce retail import, it is also clearly required that each pilot city (region) should earnestly assume the main responsibility of the pilot work of cross-border e-commerce retail import policy in the region, strictly implement the regulatory requirements, comprehensively strengthen the prevention and control of quality and safety risks, and timely investigate and deal with the “online shopping bonded + offline self pick-up” outside the special customs supervision area Second sales and other violations, to ensure the smooth progress of the pilot work, and jointly promote the healthy and sustainable development of industry norms.
There is market demand, policies are adding vitality, cross-border e-commerce is growing strongly, and supporting facilities are gradually following up. According to reports, there are more than 1800 overseas warehouses of cross-border e-commerce in China, with a growth rate of 80% in 2020 and an area of more than 12 million square meters.
Post time: Jun-24-2021