Recently, the Official Reply of the State Council on Approving the Establishment of Comprehensive Pilot Zones for Cross border E-Commerce in 33 Cities and Regions including Langfang (the Official Reply for short below) was officially released, approving the establishment of comprehensive pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce in another 33 cities and regions, including Langfang, Zaozhuang and Lhasa. This is the seventh batch of such pilot zones, which lifted the tally to 165, covering 31 provinces in China.

In recent years, cross-border e-commerce has become an important tool to stabilize foreign trade and promote consumption, supported by policies. Data showed that the country's import and export scale of the cross-border e-commerce increased nearly tenfold in the past five years. The figure hit 1.92 trillion yuan in 2021, an increase of 18.6 percent from a year earlier, realizing a rapid growth for two consecutive years. In the first half of 2022, the market registered a 28.6-percent year-on-year growth in trade volume. Comprehensive pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce play a significant role in driving it.

At 2022 China E-commerce Convention - Cross-border E-commerce Forum held during 2022 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS), Zhu Lian, second level inspector of the Department of Electronic Commerce and Information at the Ministry of Commerce, said that in recent years, cross-border e-commerce has developed steadily in response to the impact of the pandemic, and it has become an important tool to help stabilize the foreign trade, and is characterized by stable and improved performance in industrial development, fruitful results in international cooperation, and positive progress in rule building. According to Zhu, the current new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is restructuring the global innovation landscape, and it is the prime time for the development of the digital economy. As the most dynamic part of the digital economy, e-commerce has achieved an increase in both scale and quality, and the trend of integration and innovation is deepening.

Li Mingtao, chief expert of e-commerce of China International Electronic Commerce Center, said at the Forum that under the new pattern of development that is focused on the domestic economy and features positive interplay between domestic and international economic flows, Chinese enterprises can improve their core business through cross-border e-commerce, which will contribute to the improvement of their competitiveness and global service capabilities. Under the concept of domestic economy plays a leading role, cross-border e-commerce is an important node. With the arrival of the domestic consumption upgrading stage, domestic consumers' spending power on high-quality overseas goods is increasing, which is the main driver for the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce import business. At the same time, the flexibility and high efficiency of cross-border e-commerce make it well-suited to meet the needs in global market segments.