Promoting trade in all possible ways

Recovery expected

Nie Linhai, Deputy Director of the MOFCOM's Department of Electronic Commerce and Informatization, said the formulation of policies involving e-commerce platforms for foreign trade should focus on better facilitating exporting enterprises to tackle customs.

On July 24 the State Council's executive meeting proposed six measures on promoting foreign trade development. Small and medium-sized private enterprises are mainly supported, because their orders are small, traditional ways of providing services to them are of low efficiency and e-commerce platforms will get more opportunities.

At present there are nearly 1,000 foreign trade e-commerce websites in China, but only fewer than 10—such as Dhgate and Alibaba's Aliexpress—are big-sized ones. According to DHgate figures, in 2012 China's foreign trade e-commerce websites realized sales revenue of nearly $10 billion. Compared with the $3.8 trillion in total foreign trade volume, this is tiny.

But this is the right opportunity for foreign trade e-commerce enterprises. In the first half of the year, China's cross-border e-commerce enterprises were not affected despite the depressed foreign trade market. Instead, their development was even more vigorous.

Nie said the recent foreign trade policies and future policies supporting development of foreign trade e-commerce enterprises are aimed at reducing customs clearance costs and speeding up clearance procedures. These will directly provide a boost to China's exports.

Song Hong, Director of International Trade Division of the Institute of World Economics and Politics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said change to foreign trade will reduce costs for exporting enterprises and drive up exports. China's foreign trade is expected to recover in the upcoming months.

Song thinks in the second half of the year there will be some positive news for China's exports because the external environment is improving. The US economy is currently showing signs of getting back on track.

However, imports may not improve significantly because of weak domestic demand.