Cross-border e-commerce takes off in Hubei

The 2023 Hubei Cross-border E-commerce Development Conference takes place in the Optics Valley of China. [Photo/WeChat account of Optics Valley of China]

The 2023 Hubei Cross-border E-commerce Development Conference was held in the East Lake High-tech Development Zone (also known as Optics Valley of China, or OVC), Wuhan, Central China's Hubei province. The event was designed to give full play to Hubei's abundant resources, and provide an open platform for the development of the industry.

More than 600 leading cross-border e-commerce operators, platforms, and enterprises dealing with big data analysis, AI, logistics and online payments were invited.

Hubei has been dedicated to building its cross-border e-commerce sector into the new growth engine for local foreign trade. Since 2018, four places in Hubei – Wuhan, Huangshi, Yichang and Xiangyang – have been approved to become comprehensive national cross-border e-commerce trial zones. In 2022, the province's cross-border e-commerce trade value rose by 20 billion yuan ($2.91 billion) when compared to figures from 2021. This indicates a surge of 119.6 percent, contributing almost one fourth of Hubei's total foreign trade.

The exports and imports increase rapidly in the Optics Valley of China, with the foreign trade volume having doubled from 2016 to 2022. About half of Wuhan's foreign trade output comes from OVC.

Since 2018, when it was approved to become a comprehensive national cross-border e-commerce trial zone, the valley has set up three cross-border e-commerce talent training bases, four provincial-level industrial parks and two public overseas warehouses. Last year, it was authorized as Hubei's only State-level innovation demonstration zone for export and import trade promotion.

So far, the zone has introduced and incubated 40 cross-border e-commerce enterprises, cooperated with over 20 universities on related professional training, and fostered about 5,000 talents.