BEIJING, May 7 (Xinhua) -- The State Council, China's cabinet, on Wednesday unveiled the list of 46 cities allowed to establish integrated pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce to further stabilize development of the foreign trade.
It is the fifth time that the country has expanded the scope of the integrated pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce. The cities in the list this time include Xiongan New Area in Hebei Province, Datong in Shanxi Province and Manzhouli in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
After the expansion, the number of cities having the integrated pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce has reached 105.
The fifth batch of pilot cities has expanded to the third-tier and fourth-tier cities with the good foundation for foreign trade, said Li Yi, an assistant researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation (CAITEC).
In terms of policy preferences, the previous meeting held by the State Council made it clear that the firms in these zones will enjoy such support policies as exemption of value-added and consumption taxes on retail exports, and assessed levy of the corporate income tax.
Affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, many foreign trade companies in China are accelerating innovation and transformation.
"Cross-border e-commerce + China-Europe freight trains + overseas warehouses" has become a new way for China's foreign trade goods to go global.
AliExpress, an international online shopping platform under Alibaba, has seen its visit traffic in Spain and Italy increased by 20 percent and 14 percent year-on-year, respectively, during the period of the epidemic prevention and control. On the one hand, it actively guides merchants to stock up overseas warehouses to ensure overseas supplies; on the other hand, it also helps foreign trade companies to seize business opportunities and get orders, according to a person in charge of the platform.
Since the beginning of this year, the import and export of cross-border e-commerce in many regions have grown against the decline trend.
For example, in the first quarter, the import and export value of cross-border e-commerce in east China's Shandong Province grew to 740 million yuan (about 104.18 million U.S. dollars), an increase of 114.6 percent year-on-year.
In March, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region saw the cross-border e-commerce imports and exports stand at 63.58 million yuan, an increase of 4.7 times year-on-year. (Edited by Hu Pingchao with Xinhua Silk Road, hupingchao@xinhua.org)
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