The new format of cross-border e-commerce helps to ＂stabilize foreign trade＂

A few days ago, the the State Council executive meeting launched a series of measures, such as adding cross-border electronic commerce Comprehensive Experimental Zone, supporting processing trade, and holding the Canton Fair online, to actively respond to the impact of the epidemic and strive to stabilize the basic market of foreign trade and foreign investment. In recent years, the import and export scale of cross-border e-commerce in China has expanded rapidly. This meeting called for the establishment of 46 new cross-border e-commerce comprehensive experimental zones on the basis of the original 59, which is of great significance to the future development of cross-border e-commerce and the transformation and upgrading of foreign trade industry.

As an important promoter of building overseas service network and promoting trade globalization, cross-border e-commerce started relatively late in China, but its development momentum is very rapid. Nowadays, the domestic cross-border e-commerce market is extremely hot. The joint operation of B2B, B2C and other cross-border trading modes has broken the trade barriers between countries and further optimized the allocation of resources in the international market. Under the policy background of opening wider to the outside world, the cross-border e-commerce model conforms to the trend of the times, stimulating consumer demand and continuously stimulating China’s foreign trade growth, and has developed into a prominent highlight of the foreign trade industry.

The sudden epidemic at the beginning of this year disrupted the production and operation plans of foreign trade enterprises, and many countries adopted a series of trade restrictions, which significantly affected the development momentum of China’s foreign trade. At present, although the domestic epidemic situation has gradually stabilized and foreign trade enterprises have resumed work in an orderly manner, the overseas epidemic situation continues to spread, which has added more uncertainty to China’s foreign trade exports. At the present stage, the traditional foreign trade model is seriously hindered by factors such as changes in trade policies, cancellation or delay of customer orders, and reduction of international logistics capacity, and the layout of "stabilizing foreign trade" is facing great challenges. Under such a severe foreign trade situation, overseas markets are in crisis, and many small and medium-sized foreign trade export enterprises suffer a new round of shocks and shocks.

It is worth noting that although the outbreak of overseas epidemic has dealt a heavy blow to the foreign trade industry, consumers’ demand for products and services still exists. Cross-border e-commerce has become the mainstream mode of foreign trade export, which is favored by consumers in many countries. It has become a necessary choice for consumers to turn to the Internet to seek products and services. The current crisis can accelerate the improvement of the cross-border e-commerce service system and accelerate the pace of transformation and upgrading of the foreign trade industry.

Recently, China has continuously increased its support for cross-border e-commerce, and successively introduced policies such as adding a comprehensive experimental zone for cross-border e-commerce and exempting some export goods from taxes and fees. These measures have expanded the scope of benefiting foreign trade enterprises, and policies such as reducing taxes and fees have tilted to expand the space for foreign trade development, and the mainstream trend of cross-border e-commerce will become more obvious. As the downward pressure on the economy continues to increase, as a new format and model of the foreign trade industry, cross-border e-commerce will effectively stimulate the international consumer market and inject sustained impetus into foreign trade exports.

Crisis and opportunity always go hand in hand. The crisis against the trend also contains development opportunities. The help of cross-border e-commerce provides a new support platform for the development of foreign trade. The strong mainstream trend can not only promote the development of foreign trade, but also vigorously promote the transformation and upgrading of the industry. In this epidemic, the impact of traditional offline foreign trade is the most obvious, especially for some middle-and low-end foreign trade industrial chain enterprises that rely too much on the market. Their ability to resist external risks is weak and they are inevitably caught in adversity. Therefore, actively exploring the export of high-tech foreign trade products has become a major direction for the transformation and upgrading of the foreign trade industry, and making full use of the Internet will accelerate this process.

At present, cross-border e-commerce has become the main window of foreign trade export at this stage, and the combination mode of foreign trade enterprises and cross-border e-commerce is the mainstream of the industry, which will also provide a strong impetus for China’s foreign trade to go against the trend.(Executive Dean, Institute of Digital Economy, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law) Panhelin)