Global Trade Uncertainty Intensifies: How Can Cross-border E-commerce Pilot Zones Inject New Momentum Into Foreign Trade?
Global trade uncertainty intensifies: How can cross-border e-commerce pilot zones inject new momentum into foreign trade?
How will the establishment of cross-border e-commerce pilot zones help traditional industries transform and upgrade, and bypass trade bottlenecks, given the increasing global trade uncertainty?
Kapoklog Logistics, Shenzhen, told China Business News that under the situation of traditional global trade facing challenges, cross-border e-commerce has become a more resilient trade model by reducing the threshold of industrial belt to the sea, upgrading the mode of business and releasing regional characteristics.
The number of comprehensive pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce in China has reached 177
According to the approval of the State Council, it is agreed to establish cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones in the entire island of Hainan and 15 cities (regions) including Qinhuangdao, Baoding, Erenhot, Dandong, Chuzhou, Sanming, Kaifeng, Xinxiang, Ezhou, Shaoyang, Wuzhou, Beihai, Fangchenggang, Guang'an, and Bortala Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture. At the same time, the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones established in Haikou, Sanya, and Alashankou cities will be revoked.
Zheng Min introduced that as of now, the number of comprehensive pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce in China has reached 177. This expansion further supplements and strengthens the comprehensive pilot zones for border cities in Northeast Asia, Vietnam, Central Asia, and other regions, while border trade cities have richer warehousing and logistics clearance modes, "he said.
It is worth noting that Hainan Island has been approved as the first provincial-level cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone in China. Zheng Min believes that the Hainan Comprehensive Pilot Zone, relying on the policy advantage of the "island wide closed operation" of the free trade port (implemented on December 31, 2025), will demonstrate unique development potential in the global live streaming e-commerce and cross-border e-commerce import and export fields. Specifically, the pilot zone will not only take the lead in building a new trade system framework of "zero tariffs and simplified tax system", but also fully leverage its geographical advantages as an international submarine cable landing station, directly connecting to the markets of Hong Kong, China and Southeast Asia. At the same time, with the addition of pilot policies for cross-border data flow, multiple policy dividends will be formed.
Zheng Min stated that China's cross-border e-commerce has gradually formed an industrial chain and supply chain system with multi regional division of labor and cooperation. In this system, raw materials, intermediate goods, finished products, as well as elements such as design, operation, technology, warehousing and logistics, and trading platforms, are achieving efficient collaboration and dynamic configuration between different cities.
He said, "The further expansion of the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone will help improve the uniformity of market resource allocation nationwide. More cities have been approved to establish comprehensive pilot zones, which will not only promote mutual experience and learning between regions, but also continuously optimize the cross-border e-commerce industry ecology and business environment driven by competition and cooperation
Cross border e-commerce in the global trade landscape
Under the widespread tariffs imposed by the Trump administration and its uncertainty, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that global trade growth will drop to 1.7% by 2025, a significant decrease from its forecast in January this year and more severe than the slowdown in global economic growth.
In contrast, data from market research firm eMarketer shows that the global e-commerce market maintained an average annual compound growth rate of over 15% from 2017 to 2024. In 2024, the global e-commerce revenue growth rate will reach 8.8%, which is 1.8 times the overall retail sales growth rate (4.9%). It is expected that by 2025, the global e-commerce market will exceed 7 trillion US dollars, and its proportion in the total global retail sales will increase to 23%.
Against the backdrop of weak growth in traditional trade, how will cross-border e-commerce, as a new business model, play a stabilizing role?
Zheng Min believes that the key market foundation for expanding the cross-border e-commerce pilot zone is that this business model can lower the threshold for enterprises to go global, help enterprises accelerate the formation of diversified overseas paths, and provide opportunities for industrial belt enterprises across the country to rely on cross-border e-commerce to go global, forming a new "many to many" pattern of multiple industrial belts connecting to rapidly growing e-commerce consumer markets in multiple countries. He said that in 2024, the size of the digital economy market of the "the Belt and Road" countries has reached trillions of dollars, and the e-commerce growth of many countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and other regions has exceeded 15%.
Zheng Min stated that the tariff war has dragged global trade into a highly uncertain cycle of volatility, and companies will inevitably diversify risks through a "multi center layout". For example, in the production process, China's industrial belt is linked with ASEAN, Central and Eastern Europe, as well as production bases in southern North America and South America, forming a "China R&D+regional manufacturing" model.
Zheng Min introduced that the "cross-border e-commerce+industrial belt" has given rise to multiple new paths for going global. For example, the fully managed/semi managed model solves the problem of traffic acquisition for industrial belt enterprises; The Direct to Business (DTB) business model has broken down the qualification barriers for overseas government and enterprise procurement; One inventory solution for domestic and foreign trade to solve product development problems; Breaking the bottleneck of localized services through the "warehouse chain" approach in overseas warehouses; Cluster brands and brand acquisitions can help achieve a leap from "scale expansion" to "value creation" in cross-border e-commerce.
According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, in the first quarter of this year, industrial e-commerce promoted the integration of real numbers, and the "e-commerce+industrial belt" strengthened order collection and digital collaboration, improving the production efficiency of small and medium-sized enterprises by 35%.
The State Council approved that efforts should be made to explore and innovate in the technical standards, business processes, regulatory models, and information construction related to the B2B mode of cross-border e-commerce enterprises, and to study and introduce more support measures. Further improve the cross-border e-commerce statistical system, implement support policies such as exempting value-added tax and consumption tax on cross-border e-commerce retail export goods within the comprehensive experimental zone according to regulations, and allow enterprises to choose to have their enterprise income tax assessed and collected. For cities (regions) where the comprehensive experimental zone is located that have been confirmed by the local customs to meet regulatory requirements, relevant policies for cross-border e-commerce retail imports will automatically apply, supporting enterprises to jointly build and share overseas warehouses.
The further upgrading of new models and formats of cross-border e-commerce will inevitably put forward new demands for industrial development policies, customs inspection and foreign exchange tax facilitation measures, as well as international rule exchange and cooperation, "Zheng Min said." This requires local governments to plan and coordinate comprehensively, involving multiple departments and administrative regions such as commerce, customs, commodity inspection, taxation, foreign exchange management, market supervision, districts and counties, and even human resources and social security, foreign affairs offices, etc., to create a better industrial development environment, provide better industrial public services and standardized development environment. More cities can establish policy coordination and promotion mechanisms through the establishment of cross-border e-commerce pilot zones
