China to further step up support for cross-border e-commerce development

China will further support the development of new business formats such as cross-border e-commerce with a slew of new policy measures unveiled on Thursday, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

The slew of new policy measures, officially known as the Policy Measures for Promoting Steady Growth of Foreign Trade, was adopted by the State Council, or Cabinet, upon deliberation at an executive meeting held in Beijing on November 8.

In the first three quarters, China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports increased by 11.5 percent, accounting for nearly 6 percent of China's overall foreign trade.

Speaking a press conference in Beijing on Friday to interpret the slew of new policy measures, a senior official with the ministry said that China's cross-border e-commerce has strong competitiveness, and that the latest policy measures will continue to increase support for cross-border e-commerce. According to the policy measures, efforts will be made in strengthening the connection between supply and demand, improving compliance management, optimizing the industry landscape and deepening international cooperation.

"We are also actively promoting the WTO negotiations on e-commerce agreement, and we hope that the negotiations can be concluded at an earlier date. In this way, we can work with more WTO members to provide a better development environment for cross-border e-commerce," said Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen, who is also China's international trade representative, at the press conference.

The latest policy measures are part of China's ongoing efforts to promote foreign trade growth, cultivate new international competitive advantages, and achieve mutual benefits with other countries.

The country has built 22 pilot free trade zones (FTZs) covering coastal, inland and border areas. These zones contribute about 20 percent of the country's total foreign investment and import-export volume. Foreign trade in the FTZs expanded by 11.99 percent year on year in the first three quarters of 2024.

In the first ten months, China's foreign goods trade rose 5.2 percent from a year ago to 36.02 trillion yuan (about 5 trillion U.S. dollars), with exports up 6.7 percent and imports up 3.2 percent, official data showed.

China to further step up support for cross-border e-commerce development

China will keep the exchange rate of the yuan basically stable at an adaptive and balanced level, a central bank official said Friday.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said that the stability of the yuan exchange rate would be supported by multiple favorable factors, including the equilibrium in the balance of payments, foreign exchange market resilience, the government's supportive macroeconomic policies that have notably improved market expectations, and the firming up of the country's economic recovery.

"The exchange rate of the yuan is likely to show two-way fluctuations, affected by factors such as the diverging development trends among economies, geopolitical uncertainties, and volatility in the global financial markets. The PBOC will continue to uphold the decisive role of the market in formation of exchange rate, maintain flexibility of exchange rate, and strengthen expectations management, to prevent the formation of unilateral collective expectations and self-realization in the foreign exchange market and forestall exchange rate overshooting risks, therefore to keep the rate basically stable at an adaptive and balanced level," said Liu Ye, an official with the International Department of the PBOC.

The PBOC's series of policies to boost the country's economic growth are taking effect.

It will continue to work with other departments to enhance support for the stable development of foreign trade, Liu said.

China to keep yuan exchange rate basically stable: central bank