The State Council of the People’s Republic of China has announced plans to set up 22 cities as additional cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones, including Zhuhai, where Hengqin New Area is listed as one of three offline cross-border e-commerce industrial parks.

Since 2015, China has established cross-border e-commerce pilot zones in 13 cities, including Shanghai and Hangzhou. According to the State Council, these cities have tested new policies to expedite the customs clearance of items consumers buy from foreign websites. The value of goods passing through those zones more than doubled two years in a row.

In recent years, Zhuhai has been cultivating the cross-border e-commerce industry. According to the government website, the city is now targeting the creation of a full e-commerce industrial chain to provide policy support for information sharing, smart logistics services, e-commerce credit, statistical monitoring and risk control.

Zhuhai’s listing as an additional cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone acknowledges Zhuhai’s rapid growth in foreign trade.

Hengqin New Area, the future new city center of Zhuhai, was listed as one of the three offline cross-border e-commerce industrial parks alongside The Zhuhai-Macao Cross-Border Industrial Zone and Doumen Guangfeng Logistics Park, and has been supported by the city’s Cross-Border E-commerce Public Service Platform and the “single window” international trade platform. The latter is Zhuhai’s electronic customs clearance system which provides a one-stop service to improve efficiency and further reduce enterprise customs clearance costs.