On February 27th, the "2023 Global Cross-border E-commerce Seller Service Conference and the Inauguration Ceremony of the 'Three Centers' of Global Cross-border E-commerce" was held in Guangzhou. At the conference, Zhong Zeyu, Vice President and Secretary-General of the China Association of Trade in Services, delivered an important speech on how the establishment of the "Three Centers" can promote the high-quality development of cross-border e-commerce.
Speech by Zhong Zeyu, Vice President and Secretary-General of the China Association of Trade in Services
As an emerging industry, cross-border e-commerce has developed rapidly and has become a new driving force for foreign trade development, a new channel for transformation and upgrading, and a new lever for high-quality economic development. Especially when global trade has suffered a severe blow due to the pandemic, cross-border e-commerce has risen against the trend and is expected to become an important engine for reshaping the future global commodity circulation value chain.
Both cross-border e-commerce and the overall economic development of society have reached a critical period requiring high-quality development. Therefore, Zhong Zeyu proposed five indicators to measure high-quality development, including whether products and services have pricing power and a voice; the tier and development stage of the industry, and whether industrial brands have been established; whether continuous innovation across cycles can be unaffected by external, industry technology, and cyclical fluctuations; industry average profit margins; and the business environment, talent ecosystem construction, and cultural value orientation.
Subsequently, Zhong Zeyu pointed out the main problems faced by high-quality development in cross-border e-commerce, including obtaining sustainable traffic, a fragile supply chain that makes it difficult for sellers to break through the "middleman" model, non-beneficial circulation and mobility of industry talents, difficulties in innovation and brand building for production enterprises, issues with cross-border e-commerce talent education and training, and the need for continuous construction of the service provider system and ecological environment.
Zhong Zeyu emphasized that at this stage, cross-border e-commerce is an important means and path to achieve high-quality development. Selling goods is only a manifestation and result of cross-border e-commerce; what truly drives high-quality development is service trade. Corresponding to the five indicators of high-quality development, cross-border e-commerce is closest to the market and can rapidly increase market share; through personalized customization and multimedia promotion, the time to cultivate brands is greatly shortened, thereby significantly increasing profit margins; market, big data, new technologies, and industrial ecology can collectively achieve continuous innovation across cycles. With the emergence of new technologies and continuous optimization of intermediate links, corporate decision-making becomes more precise and operational efficiency is significantly improved; with the establishment of global seller networks, logistics networks, payment networks, and brand manufacturer networks, the division of labor in the industry becomes clearer, and an integrated and compatible industry ecosystem is formed.
Zhong Zeyu revealed that the nationally pioneering "Three Centers" of cross-border e-commerce will mainly focus on six areas: creating a cross-border e-commerce platform convergence zone, building a cross-border e-commerce marketing center, implementing a cross-border e-commerce brand project, strengthening cross-border e-commerce supply chain management, optimizing the professional service ecosystem for cross-border e-commerce, and jointly building a public service platform for cross-border e-commerce. They will actively grasp four types of discourse power: global market discourse power based on global talents/sellers, discourse power in the circulation field through a global collaborative network of various regional logistics centers commanded by the smart logistics distribution center (the brain); establishing financial services that promote the use of the renminbi, digital currencies, or other forms through both import and seller measures (settlement discourse power); pursuing a win-win situation for excellent enterprises and high-quality products in terms of physical and virtual assets (supply-side discourse power).
The establishment of the "Three Centers" of global cross-border e-commerce in Guangzhou has significant practical implications for Guangzhou to further accelerate the cultivation of cross-border e-commerce SMEs, build a convenient and efficient service system, construct a localized cross-border e-commerce industrial cluster ecosystem, and help small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises to build their brands internationally. Taking the "Three Centers" as a pilot, we will summarize experiences and models to promote global collaborative development and win-win cooperation.
