The Healthy Development of China’s Cross-border e-Commerce

Cross-border e-commerce is becoming a new development trend in international trade. According to China Customs statistics, China’s cross-border e-commerce import and export volume reached CNY 1.69 trillion in 2020, an increase of 31.1%. Among them, exports increased by 40.1% and imports increased by 16.5%, much higher than the growth rate of China’s foreign trade. In the past five years, China’s cross-border e-commerce import and export scale has increased nearly 10 times.

The supporting policies for improving the development of cross-border e-commerce include:

• Expansion of the pilot scope of the comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zone;
• Optimize the list of cross-border e-commerce retail imports;
• Facilitate the management of cross-border e-commerce import and export returns and exchanges;
• Develop guidelines for the protection of intellectual property rights in cross-border e-commerce to prevent counterfeit and shoddy goods.

Expansion of the pilot scope of the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone is a matter of course. China’s cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone has been expanded five times, and there are currently 105.

The pilot zones are actively exploring to improve the efficiency of cross-border e-commerce customs clearance. Establishing online trading platforms, improving the cross-border e-commerce logistics system, and introducing tax support policies for cross-border e-commerce retail export goods in the comprehensive pilot zone. These improved risk prevention and control and supervision systems are conditions for replication and promotion on a larger scale.

At the same time, China’s consumption scale continues to expand, and there is a strong demand for high-quality imported products, which is in line with the needs of social and economic development.

It is imperative to optimize the list of cross-border e-commerce retail imports. Since the release of the “List of Cross-border E-commerce Retail Import Commodities” in 2016, China has implemented list management for cross-border e-commerce retail imports, and the listed commodities are supervised as imported goods for personal use and enjoy preferential tax policies.

In recent years, the scale of China’s cross-border e-commerce retail imports has continued to expand, and in 2020 it will exceed 100 billion CNY. Further optimize the list of cross-border e-commerce retail imports, follow the trend of consumption upgrading, and increase the import of high-quality consumer goods from abroad. This will not only promote the development of new cross-border e-commerce business formats, but also better meet the needs of consumers.

It is urgent to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights in cross-border e-commerce. With the development of cross-border e-commerce, there are more and more intellectual property disputes. The formulation of guidelines for the protection of intellectual property rights of cross-border e-commerce, clarification of the main responsibilities of all parties, and improvement of the intellectual property protection mechanism of cross-border e-commerce are essential to the healthy development of cross-border e-commerce.

To improve customer experience, cross-border e-commerce can get better and better. Encourage the construction of warehouses overseas, improve the digital and intelligent level of overseas warehouses, and improve the layout of overseas warehouses. This will not only drive more companies to expand into the international market, but also improve logistics efficiency, shorten cross-border shopping time, and improve consumers’ use of cross-border e-commerce The shopping experience. Prevent counterfeit and shoddy goods from using cross-border e-commerce import and export to enter the market, improve the management system of cross-border e-commerce import and export return and exchange, and improve consumer satisfaction.