Pilot area speeds up development of digital Silk Road

By strengthening its cooperation with countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, China's first pilot area for cross-border e-commerce, located in Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, has been transforming itself into a strategic hub along the digital Silk Road.

A cluster of platforms for global e-commerce, China (Hangzhou) Cross-Border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Area is now home to 810 companies that specialize in cross-border e-commerce. According to statistics, quality products from over 100 countries have been imported to China and in turn products made here have been exported to more than 200 global countries and regions via cross-border e-commerce platforms headquartered in Hangzhou.

Over the past four years, the pilot area has established commercial ties with BRI countries in sectors including digital technology, online trading, and industrial matchmaking. To expand further, companies in the city are turning to the Belt and Road Initiative market for the export of capital, technology and products.

AliExpress, a global retail platform under the umbrella of Alibaba Group, has become the largest e-commerce platform in Russia and is expanding its presence in Europe and South America. Online retailer JollyChic, operated by Jolly Information Technology Co Ltd based in Hangzhou, is now the biggest mobile e-commerce platform in Middle East region. Club Factory, a Chinese e-commerce website with 70 million users globally, is the third largest among its counterparts in India.

It is estimated that in the domestic market, imports via Tmall Global and NetEase Kaola -- two cross-border e-commerce platforms in Hangzhou -- account for over a half of country's total retail imports.

PingPong, China's cross-border e-commerce payment platform based in Hangzhou, announced it will deepen cooperation with Luxembourg at the Zhejiang Provincial Promotion Conference on Belt and Road Initiative in Ningbo on June 8. The two sides will work together in exporting China's cross-border e-commerce to the European Union, along with PingPong's overseas electronic payments and digital banking projects.

The financial technology startup established its Luxembourg entity, PingPong Europe, last September, making it the first Chinese fintech company to open an office in Europe.

In terms of its global logistics network, Hangzhou has launched direct cargo flights to regions such as Novosibirsk, Moscow, Belgium and New York. Cainiao Network, the logistics arm of Alibaba Group, has set up logistics stations in major Belt and Road cities and regions, including Hong Kong, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and the city of Liege in Belgium.

An official from the China (Hangzhou) Cross-Border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Area said that centering on the development of the digital Silk Road, Hangzhou will accelerate the creation of online trading platforms. The cross-border e-commerce hub in East China aims to foster more than 3 million micro and medium-sized enterprises serving the global industrial chain by 2022.