618.46 billion yuan in the first quarter, an increase of nearly 70% in six years, and exports accounting for over 76% – this latest set of data outlines the strong growth curve of my country’s cross-border e-commerce.
Relevant people pointed out that my country’s service industry currently presents new characteristics of the integration of manufacturing and services, the symbiosis of digital and physical entities, and the interconnection between domestic and international. The combination with new foreign trade formats such as cross-border e-commerce is becoming an important force in building a solid foundation for global economic and trade operations and supporting the construction of a new development pattern.
From the perspective of development history, cross-border e-commerce has grown from a “spark” to a “light cavalry” of foreign trade.
Traditional foreign trade is under obvious pressure, but cross-border e-commerce relies on the advantages of digital operations and high-efficiency operations to open up convenient channels for small, medium and micro enterprises to go overseas, playing an important role in the process of import and export growth against the trend.
From 2020 to 2025, my country’s cross-border e-commerce import and export scale increased from 1.62 trillion yuan to 2.75 trillion yuan, an increase of nearly 70% in six years, and the growth rate continues to lead the overall foreign trade.
This is not only an increase in numbers, but also reflects the deep reshaping of the foreign trade structure.
Cross-border e-commerce has the characteristics of fragmented market orders and personalized consumption, creating new consumption scenarios and achieving precise fit with the service industry’s characteristics of diversified supply, precise adaptation, and digital and intelligent transformation.
It is no longer just “selling goods”, but is leading to a comprehensive upgrade of supporting services such as logistics, payment, finance, and overseas marketing. It has become an important link between China’s manufacturing and China’s services. It promotes my country’s opening up from the mere export of goods to the coordinated output of goods, services, technology, and standards, and helps China’s economy move from a “manufacturing power” to a “manufacturing power.”
However, the high-quality development of cross-border e-commerce still faces some outstanding constraints.
The first is the outstanding shortcomings of the cross-border integrated logistics system.
The global layout of overseas warehouses is uneven, terminal distribution, returns and exchange services are inconvenient, and external disturbances such as international port congestion and geopolitical conflicts are superimposed. The resilience of the supply chain needs to further match global immediate consumer demand.
Secondly, the cross-departmental coordination and linkage mechanism is not yet complete.
There are still “blocking points” in the policy convergence of relevant departments, there are still “breaking points” in data connectivity, and the facilitation of the entire chain including foreign investment, export tax rebates, foreign exchange settlements, and corporate financing needs to be improved.
The third is the insufficient ability of enterprises to respond to cross-border risks.
In the face of drastic changes in overseas policies such as tax policy adjustments for cross-border small-value parcels and upgrading of regulatory requirements in many countries, some companies have problems such as lack of experience, slow adjustment, poor communication and consultation channels, difficulty in safeguarding overseas rights, and excessive power protection.
To address these pain points, a series of measures need to be taken.
Accelerate the application of cutting-edge digital technologies, integrate big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain, etc. throughout all business links to create a visual and intelligent operation system.
Continue to promote the customs “inspect first and then ship” supervision model to reduce customs clearance costs for enterprises; promote financial institutions to develop exclusive products adapted to cross-border e-commerce to solve the problem of difficult and expensive financing for small and medium-sized enterprises; build an international compliance training, industry standard formulation, and overseas risk warning platform to guide enterprises to go overseas in compliance.
In the future, we must accelerate the construction of “cross-border e-commerce + industrial belt” and transform domestic regional industrial advantages into global service competitiveness.
Our country has hundreds of manufacturing industry clusters with unique characteristics. Taking the outdoor furniture industry belt as an example, if it can be equipped with professional overseas marketing services, localized after-sales installation services, and flexible cross-border financial services, the added value of the entire industry belt can be greatly improved.
It is necessary to guide the in-depth connection between cross-border e-commerce platforms and industrial belts, cultivate a number of “industrial belt + cross-border e-commerce” demonstration parks, and integrate one-stop services such as customs clearance, logistics, finance, compliance, and brand incubation in the parks to allow small and medium-sized enterprises to “go abroad with their bags.”
At the same time, we strive to build local high-quality service brands, support domestic strong logistics companies, financial institutions, and legal service institutions to “gather together to go overseas” and establish a reputation for Chinese services in overseas markets.
Improve the entire industry chain ecosystem, make the “fast lane” of cross-border e-commerce smoother, and make Chinese services a brand-new business card for high-level opening up to the outside world.
