E-commerce fuels Chengdu's trade growth

A truck carries exported goods through a duty-free zone in Chengdu. The capital city of southwestern Sichuan province is making an effort to promote its foreign trade via e-commerce platforms. Provided to China Daily

Cross-border platforms expand into multiple industries

With transactions thriving - particularly online - between international markets and China's western region, Chengdu is boosting its logistics services to meet the demand of a red-hot e-commerce boom in the city.

As the capital of southwestern Sichuan province, the city has long been an important commercial center for the domestic market, but such trade is no longer as central to Chengdu as it used to be. The e-commerce companies here are increasingly deploying money and resources into cross-border e-commerce platforms to fuel their growth.

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Peng Jun, director of the commercial service department at the Chengdu commerce bureau, says cross-border business has expanded into many different industries, including trade, finance, tourism, agriculture and transportation.

"Business-to-customer e-commerce will become the main driver to sell more products made in Chengdu and western China to overseas markets," Peng says. Chengdu's exports and imports via cross-border e-commerce accounted for approximately 10 percent of the city's total trade volume of $49 billion last year, according to Chengdu's municipal development and reform commission.

With more than 8,000 companies carrying out various e-commerce functions, including supply chain management, mobile commerce, online platforms, Internet marketing and transaction processing, Chengdu generated 550 billion yuan ($88 billion) in business transactions on its e-commerce platforms last year.

Over 40 large e-commerce businesses have set up their regional headquarters, operational hubs, and research and development centers in the city. Chengdu is also home to 150 third-party e-commerce platforms, with nearly 12,000 companies and more than 63,000 employees. The platforms so far have created 380,000 jobs.

As some foreign and domestic manufacturers are moving their production facilities inland to seek new market growth points, Peng says inland regions will continue to gain a market presence from international markets through cross-border e-commerce.

Indeed, an increasing number of eBay sellers are emerging from such inland cities as Chengdu; Zhengzhou, Henan province; and Xi'an, Shaanxi province. Sales on the online auction site from Chengdu rose 38 percent from 2012 to 2013, the Hangzhou-based China e-Business Research Center says.