China is planning to build more cross-border e-commerce zones, to boost its sluggish foreign trade. Established last March, Hangzhou Cross-Border E-Commerce Pilot Zone was China's first comprehensive zone, and officials say its success and experience should be widely promoted across the country.
This is the warehouse of Netease Kaola, a major cross-border e-commerce business in the Hangzhou pilot zone.
Thousands of products imported from abroad, are waiting in line to be delivered to Chinese consumers.
With the help of innovative policies at the Zone, the company said its business surged during the past few months.
"Here in Hangzhou we enjoy a 24x7 customs clearance service, which has largely improved the efficiency. And instead of reporting to numerous departments including customs, inspection and quarantine, enterprises here need to only declare their transactions online," Wang Zheng, marketing manager of Netease Kaola, said.
Cross-border e-commerce transactions in Hangzhou, saw expotential growth within just a year. The figure was less than $20 million in 2014, and it surged to $3 billion by November 2015. The growing sector has also nurtured new business models.
"We focus on providing professional logistics chain services. With the fast growth of cross border e-commerce, our capacity has increased from 1300 orders per month to 1 million orders per month, and the staff numbers also grow from a few dozens to 7 hundred," Zhu Haizhong, executive director of personnerl of Hangzhou Highstore Technology Co., said.
To build a complete industry chain and ecosystem, different government departments have exchanged information flow and improved their operational efficiency.
"Since last March, Hangzhou Customs have coordinated with other government departments, issuing 15 favorable policies to support the cross-border e-commerce. These experience and measures can serve as a reference for future pilot zones," Li Miao, deputy section chief of Cutoms of Hangzhou Economic & Tech. Dev. Area, said.
The Ministry of Commerce says more than 200,000 companies are running cross-border e-commerce businesses in China, via 5,000-plus e-commerce platforms.
Cross-border E-commerce has brought high quality and exotic products to consumers, it also serves as a wider platform for domestic importers and exporters. By replicating the experience of the Hangzhou pilot zone, China aims to build similar pilot zones to boost foreign trade and stimulate the economy.
