Want China Times, Xinhua 2014-09-21
Every day, peddlers throng in a bustling wet market on a remote section of the China-Vietnam border. Their daily lives may soon be changed by a new age of cross-border trade centered on e-commerce.
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| Two students discuss the design of their online store on Taobao. (File photo/Xinhua) |
Every day, peddlers throng in a bustling wet market on a remote section of the China-Vietnam border. Their daily lives may soon be changed by a new age of cross-border trade centered on e-commerce.
Before the
four-day China-ASEAN Expo closed in south China's Nanning on Friday, a slew of
deals on e-commerce were inked between companies from China and members of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
They
include agreements over online sales programs for agricultural products from
Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. These schemes will provide more
convenient cross-border transaction for both local sellers and Chinese
consumers.
IRRESISTIBLE
TREND
China and
its neighbors to the southwest have a long history of cross-border trade. In
ancient times, border residents bartered goods without using a medium of
exchange like money.
When money
was invented, cross-border trade became more frequent. But the biggest
challenge offline transactions encounter lies in trade settlement.
At the
Puzhai Border Zone in Guangxi's Pingxiang, three Vietnamese women place a table
besides an ATM to provide currency exchange services for merchants and
tourists.
In several minutes,
they close a deal with two tourists from northeast China, who exchange 3,000
yuan (US$488) for 9.9 million Vietnamese dong (VND).
"Over
100 Vietnamese fruit vendors do business in the zone, and nearly all of them
have directly exchanged currencies via this private currency trading emerging
since the early 1990s," said Vietnamese fruit peddler Do Thi Ngan.
She said
that doing business with Chinese is a good choice, but trading the Chinese
currency Renminbi, or yuan, for the VND is not easy. Since exchanges have until
recently had to be conducted via the US dollar in local banks, the procedure
was very complicated and extra fees were involved.
Good news
is an Agricultural Bank of China branch in Dongxing established a currency
trading center in April, which allows direct convertibility of the yuan and the
VND.
But the
border merchants may need more than that. They need a safer and more convenient
way to do business. E-commerce may lead them to the dream.
China has
been accelerating e-commerce cooperation with the ASEAN by encouraging
cross-border transaction settlement in yuan and establishing online payment
platforms.
Yao
Songtao, deputy head of the financial office in the Guangxi government, said
local authorities plan to start approving renminbi settlement accounts set by
foreign institutions in the region.
Gao
Hongbing, senior vice president of Alibaba Group, the largest e-commerce player
in China, said the company has already prepared payment platforms for
cross-border transactions.
The United
Overseas Bank (China) has also developed a suite of cross-border renminbi
solutions, said Eric Lian Voon Fui, the bank's president.
The
combination of renminbi cross-border settlement and e-commerce will shorten the
distance between China and other countries, prompting fast transactions and
saving costs, Yao said.
E-COMMERCE
IN THE AIR
E-commerce
has gained great popularity in China among enterprises and individuals. Young
Chinese are increasingly inclined to shop by clicking their computer mice
rather than by selecting in shops.
The
combined transaction volume of e-commerce in the Chinese mainland jumped 29.8%
from a year ago to 5.9 trillion yuan in the first half of 2014, data from
China's Ministry of Commerce showed.
Hutama
Sugadhi, president of Indonesia-based Pt Aneka Coffee Industry, came to the
China-ASEAN Expo to seek an e-commerce partner to explore the Chinese market.
"The market will be broader and e-commerce will inject new vitality,"
he said.
Like
Sugadhi, Chinese e-commerce enterprises are likewise eager to take a share of
the emerging ASEAN market after great success domestically. The ASEAN shows
huge potential, with around 200 million Internet users in the region, a third
of its total population.
Alibaba has
turned its attention to ASEAN e-commerce by investing US$249 million in the
Singapore Post in May to jointly establish a platform for international
e-commerce logistics.
Lee Chee
Leong, Malaysia deputy minister of international trade and industry, said there
is a clear emerging trend for China-ASEAN trade evolving into electronic
cooperation.
China is
aiming to elevate bilateral trade with the ASEAN to US$500 billion by 2015.
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