Cross-border E-commerce Driving Overseas Expansion

A report from chinadaily.com.cn Sept. 1st, 2026：

Cross-border e-commerce is emerging as a new driver of high-quality development in foreign trade.

The total value of China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports reached 2.84 trillion yuan in 2025, up 4.8 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the General Administration of Customs.

Under the traditional foreign-trade model, manufacturing companies generally need to deal with only a limited number of buyers, while cross-border e-commerce sellers must respond directly to vast and fragmented demand from overseas end users.

Moreover, cross-border transportation, advertising, sales operations, after-sales service and payment collection are closely interconnected, making cross-border e-commerce a daunting challenge for any company seeking to enter the sector.

Policy support is key to helping more companies overcome initial difficulties, gain a firm foothold overseas and ultimately build a stable and lasting presence in global markets.

The outline of China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) calls for supporting cross-border e-commerce and other new business forms and models.

In April, the Ministry of Commerce and five other government departments released guidelines calling for the development of models combining market procurement trade with cross-border e-commerce, and China-Europe freight trains with cross-border e-commerce.

The guidelines also encourage e-commerce companies to register trademarks, apply for patents and develop their own brands overseas.