Recently, the State Council approved the establishment of 24 new cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones in 12 provinces (regions) including Inner Mongolia, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangxi, Hainan, Guizhou, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Qinghai. So far, the number of national cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones has increased to 165, covering all 31 provinces (regions, municipalities) in China. This is the 8th expansion of the pilot program since the first batch was established in 2015, marking a further improvement in the support system for cross-border e-commerce as a new foreign trade format and injecting new momentum into high-quality foreign trade development.

The expansion focuses on two key themes: "regional balance" and "industrial synergy." In terms of regional distribution, the new pilot zones cover Northeast, Central, Western China, and border areas. For example, Inner Mongolia and Guangxi will leverage their border port advantages to build cross-border e-commerce channels targeting Russia, Mongolia, and ASEAN; Central provinces like Henan and Hubei will combine their manufacturing strengths to promote the export of mechanical and electrical products, auto parts, and other competitive goods via cross-border e-commerce; Western provinces such as Guizhou and Qinghai will prioritize the development of characteristic agricultural products (e.g., Guizhou tea, Qinghai beef and mutton) into cross-border e-commerce brands. In terms of industrial orientation, the pilot zones will focus on building "two platforms and six systems" (online comprehensive service platform, offline industrial park platform, and supporting systems for information sharing, financial services, intelligent logistics, etc.), promoting deep integration between cross-border e-commerce and local industries, and fostering leading enterprises and industrial clusters with annual transaction volumes exceeding 1 billion yuan.

Industry experts believe that this expansion is a key measure to address the current foreign trade situation. Despite the slowdown in global trade growth in 2023, China's cross-border e-commerce has maintained rapid growth—with imports and exports reaching 1.7 trillion yuan in the first three quarters, up 14.4% year-on-year, accounting for 5.9% of total foreign trade. The full coverage of pilot zones will further reduce operational costs for cross-border e-commerce enterprises (e.g., simplifying customs clearance procedures, lowering logistics costs), stimulate the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises, and drive the transformation from "Made in China" to "Created in China."

In addition, the new pilot zones will strengthen "digital empowerment." For instance, the Hefei pilot zone in Anhui will build a "cross-border e-commerce + artificial intelligence" platform to optimize product selection and precision marketing through big data analysis; the Nanning pilot zone in Guangxi will launch a "cross-border e-commerce + blockchain" traceability system to enhance consumer trust in imported goods. These innovative measures will cross-border e-commerce from "scale expansion" to "quality improvement," enabling new foreign trade formats to achieve "both volume and quality growth."

The full coverage of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones is not only an important symbol of China's foreign trade transformation and upgrading but also a concrete practice of building a "dual circulation" development pattern. In the future, with the improvement of "one-stop" service capabilities and industrial ecosystems in the pilot zones, cross-border e-commerce will continue to play a role in "stabilizing foreign trade and promoting growth" and become a "new engine" for China's foreign trade development.