Cross-border e-commerce, as a new form of international trade, has shown strong development vitality in recent years, among which the ever-expanding cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone has obviously played a leading role in promoting high-quality trade development.

The State Council has approved a new batch of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones. Previously, seven cities including Dongying, Weifang, Jinan, Qingdao, Yantai, Weihai and Linyi have been approved as pilot zones. With the addition of cities Zibo and Rizhao, the number of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones in Shandong has risen to nine. This is the sixth expansion of the comprehensive pilot zone in the past seven years. It has brought the number of comprehensive pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce in China to 132, covering 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.

From a set of data, we can clearly see the obvious effect after the establishment of the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone: in 2014, the cross-border online retail transaction volume in China was 449.2 billion yuan, and there were about 5,000 platforms and enterprises engaged in cross-border e-commerce. By 2020, the import and export volume of cross-border e-commerce has totaled 1.98 trillion yuan, with more than 30,000 enterprises engaged in cross-border e-commerce, and the number of registrations is still increasing year by year.

China's cross-border e-commerce has developed steadily and become a new engine for import and export trade. The expansion of the comprehensive pilot zone for cross-border e-commerce will help deal with the impact of COVID-19 and promote the realization of the goal of "stabilizing foreign trade growth". We will encourage the expansion of comprehensive pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce, support them in carrying out pilot projects, and make full use of online and offline channels, which will help expand diversified markets and improve the quality of foreign trade while ensuring stability.