Share the dividends of digital trade development with the world
The comprehensive pilot program for expanding the opening-up of the service industry is an important measure to promote high-level opening-up to the outside world. Starting today, this newspaper will launch a series of reports on "Service Industry Openness Creating New Opportunities", showcasing the effectiveness of opening up in various pilot areas, exploring typical experiences, and interpreting innovative measures.
Online business negotiations, AI assistants provide full support throughout the process; Foreign procurement equipment can be intelligently matched by uploading drawings; Cross border payments and receipts by enterprises can connect the world with just one account... Digital trade breaks down time and space barriers and is becoming a new trend in international trade and a new engine for global economic growth.
As the permanent host city of the Global Digital Trade Expo, Zhejiang Hangzhou is strengthening cross-border e-commerce industry, optimizing digital technology trade, digital service trade, and digital product trade, cultivating and strengthening digital trade operators, and making positive contributions to the development of global digital trade. By 2025, the import and export volume of digital trade in Hangzhou will reach 376.89 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.6%, accounting for 38.6% of the total in Zhejiang Province; Exported 75.87 billion yuan through the customs cross-border e-commerce platform, a year-on-year increase of 30.6%, and the momentum of opening up continues to be released.
Connect to the global market
Recently, the Xiaoshan District International Expo Center in Hangzhou has once again become a global trade focus, with the "Sharing the Big Market · Exporting to China" series of activities being held here. Domestic and foreign merchants gather here, and negotiations and connections continue to flow.
The name 'Export to China' is designed from the perspective of trading partners, demonstrating China's firm determination to actively expand independent opening up, "said Xiao Lu, Deputy Director of the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce. The event landed in Hangzhou, benefiting from Zhejiang's solid foundation as a major foreign trade province and relying on Hangzhou's unique advantages in cross-border e-commerce, digital technology, and online and offline integration. Data shows that by 2025, the import volume of goods in Zhejiang Province will reach 1.36 trillion yuan, accounting for 7.4% of the national total; The import volume of service trade in Hangzhou accounts for 7.64% of the national total, and the role of opening up the gateway is becoming increasingly prominent.
At the Alibaba booth, reporters experienced the trade convenience brought by AI business assistants and AI procurement engines on site. The product is equipped with four professional intelligent agents for small and medium-sized enterprises in the fields of product delivery, reception, marketing, and compliance, and the entire foreign trade operation can be fully managed. The person in charge of an overseas enterprise told reporters that through digital technology services, it can achieve functions such as one click dressing up and multilingual reception, greatly reducing the threshold for the brand to enter China.
As the only national and global professional expo with digital trade as the theme in China, the Global Digital Trade Expo is permanently settled in Hangzhou, building a large platform where a hundred flowers bloom and gather the wisdom of the whole industry, creating a good environment and providing strong support for the development of global digital trade. At the fourth Global Digital Trade Expo held in September last year, there were 1812 exhibitors, more than 257000 visitors, and 161.98 billion yuan of investment and trade intention was signed.
"For Chinese enterprises that want to explore the Indonesian market, there are broad opportunities here, and one of the best ways is to organize a group to go to sea and cut in through professional exhibitions." At the fourth Global Digital Trade Expo, Eland, CEO of Asia Pacific region of Clariant Indonesia Convention&Exhibition Group, organized a professional procurement group composed of 70 enterprises to Hangzhou, bringing more than 5 billion yuan of purchase list. Through the Digital Trade Fair, Ailande has established a connection with Hangzhou and partnered with Hangzhou Convention and Exhibition Group to host the Indonesia Digital Transformation Expo. The Hangzhou enterprise exhibition group won tens of millions of yuan in intended orders at the expo.
Limited extension, unlimited business opportunities. Hangzhou Convention and Exhibition Group extends its services beyond exhibitions - relying on big data, big models, and cloud computing to match orders for exhibitors and merchants throughout the year; Grafting the influence of the Digital Trade Fair onto regional exhibitions such as the Asia Europe Expo, the South Asia Expo, and the China Arab States Expo, forming a global economic and trade network of "vine going out to sea, root strengthening".
Speed up cross-border customs clearance
Recently, the General Administration of Customs, together with 24 departments (units), jointly deployed the Special Action for Cross border Trade Facilitation in 2026. Focusing on key tasks such as optimizing and upgrading goods trade, vigorously developing service trade, and innovating the development of digital trade and green trade, the special action research proposes a new round of facilitation policy measures to help improve the quality and efficiency of foreign trade, mainly including deepening the innovation of import and export customs clearance supervision mode, optimizing supervision services for new foreign trade formats, and 29 other measures.
"We will build diversified logistics channels, support the development of rail public multimodal transport mode, and help enterprises to better explore the market of countries jointly building the the Belt and Road." Feng Zhongliang, Deputy Director of Hangzhou Customs, introduced that, in accordance with the requirements of special actions, Hangzhou Customs actively promoted reform measures such as "direct lift by ship" and "direct shipment upon arrival", deepened the pilot project of "inspection before shipment", and improved the level of customs clearance facilitation and cross-border trade facilitation.
Financial integration is the key to smooth trade. The person in charge of the Zhejiang Branch of the People's Bank of China said, "We are continuously optimizing cross-border settlement, exploring digital RMB payments, and promoting the convenient export of transaction data. Currently, we are constantly improving our financial infrastructure, optimizing and expanding more scenarios for the use of digital RMB, and benefiting overseas enterprises with higher quality financial services
Lianlian Digital Technology Co., Ltd., located in Binjiang District, Hangzhou, has over 60 payment licenses and related qualifications, creating a globally compliant and secure payment base that safeguards cross-border payments for approximately 7.9 million merchants and enterprises worldwide.
In the wave of digital trade, Zhejiang Zhongnan Cartoon Co., Ltd. is committed to promoting Chinese original animation works to the world, achieving over 600000 minutes of overseas exports. Traditional cross-border payments rely on the Global Banking and Financial Telecommunication Association, which not only has high costs and low efficiency, but also has problems such as rigid supporting technology architecture and centralized security risks, "sighed Wu Jia, Chairman of Zhongnan Cartoon
Relying on the advantage of openness, Hangzhou also collaborates with Hainan to build a cultural community for going global. Set up a cultural "New Three" zone at the Hainan Consumer Expo to export high-quality content such as online literature, online games, and short dramas, as well as AI film and television incubation technology. Hainan provides a channel for going global and market access convenience, and through cross-border live streaming sessions and regional distribution bases, achieves localization and landing, solving the problems of Hangzhou version approval and Hainan's insufficient industrial foundation.
Expand open space
Currently, China's digital trade has deeply integrated into the global trading system. Hangzhou is expanding institutional openness in terms of rules, regulations, management, standards, etc., further forming a stable, transparent, and predictable institutional environment, and creating an open innovation ecosystem with global competitiveness.
Hangzhou has an industrial foundation and a first mover advantage. The institutional bottlenecks and shortcomings encountered in the pilot project urgently need to be resolved through legislation, "said Chen Ying, deputy director of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the Hangzhou Municipal People's Congress. Promoting the formulation and implementation of rules on cross-border data flow and storage cannot be separated from legal authorization and definition. To this end, Hangzhou has issued the first local regulation in the field of digital trade in China, the "Hangzhou Digital Trade Promotion Regulations," which clarifies the legal concept, scope, and business models of digital trade, authorizes the government to promote the formulation and implementation of rules for cross-border data flow, and clearly defines the responsibilities of various government departments in promoting the development of digital trade.
Institutional openness, standards are key. Focusing on the five major industries of intelligent networking, biopharmaceuticals, high-end equipment, new materials, and green energy, Hangzhou aims to meet international advanced standards and actively carries out the "Special Action for Benchmarking and Improving Standards among Hundred Cities, Thousand Industries, and Ten Thousand Enterprises". At present, more than 5600 enterprises in Hangzhou have participated in benchmarking, leading or participating in the development of over 1900 national standards, of which more than half adopt international standards and advanced foreign standards. As a pilot project for standardized innovation and development in Zhejiang Province, Binjiang District of Hangzhou City has taken the lead in exploring the path of standard innovation, carrying out the "standard one thing" integrated service reform, launching the standard integrated service platform, and effectively solving the pain points and difficulties in enterprise standard formulation.
"Systematic measures to connect with international high standard economic and trade rules are still insufficient, and the exploration and stress testing of key links need to be deepened." The relevant person in charge of the Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce said that the comprehensive pilot requirements for expanding the opening up of the benchmarking service industry, Hangzhou will gradually relax the market access in the digital field, improve the pre access national treatment plus negative list management model, promote the orderly expansion of the opening up of telecommunications, the Internet, culture and other fields, and share the dividends of innovative development of digital trade with the world.