According to the Chinese state council in the capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province a pilot cross-border e-commerce zone is to be set up. With the new e-commerce zone China are likely to expand on their e-commerce trade which last year was worth $637.8 billion.
On Thursday a statement was released on the Chinese Government website which said that the state council have approved the e-commerce zone to develop and improve the countries overseas e-commerce industry.
The zone will have high standards and will take the lead for cross-border e-commerce logistics, customs clearance, transactions, exchange payment, exchange settlement and tax refunds. The zone will build complete industrial chains working through problems in international e-commerce; this will provide the sector experience that can be used across country. The zone will be set up and based in the city of Hangzhou. The Chinese state hope that this will expand the market and bring energy to the area along with plenty of new job opportunities.
The overseas online shopping market in China is huge with great potential to expand further. Last year China handled $637.8 billion worth of international e-commerce transactions. According to market consultancy iReasearch this was up by 30.6 percent from 2013.In 2013 China overtook the US as the worlds largest e-commerce market when their sales reached $306 billion compared to the $263 billion in the US. By 2018 China are expected to overtake the US as the worlds largest retail market, as the Chinese consumers have a passion for overseas goods.
PayPal released a report in September 2014 claiming that 35.9 million online cross-border shoppers would spend up to $159 billion by 2018.