In the first year of the “15th Five-Year Plan”, the giant ship of cross-border e-commerce is anchoring new coordinates in the wind and waves.
Relevant recommendations issued not long ago pointed out that it is necessary to expand high-level opening up to the outside world, promote innovative development of trade, enhance the functions of trade promotion platforms, and support the development of new business formats and new models such as cross-border e-commerce.
Hong Yong, associate researcher at the Ministry of Commerce Research Institute, analyzed, “The launch of the ’15th Five-Year Plan’ marks the transformation of my country’s cross-border e-commerce from ‘scale expansion’ that relies on traffic dividends to ‘quality improvement’ that focuses on quality and compliance.” According to data from the General Administration of Customs, my country’s cross-border e-commerce imports and exports in 2025 were 2.75 trillion yuan, an increase of 69.7% over 2020.
Yang Lipan, associate professor at East China University of Political Science and Law, believes that cross-border e-commerce is of great significance in driving new growth in foreign trade, promoting domestic industrial upgrading and domestic and international dual circulation. It has also become a new platform for employment and entrepreneurship and a balancer for the regional economy.
In recent years, China’s cross-border e-commerce platforms have developed rapidly overseas.
Chen Lei, co-chairman of Pinduoduo, mentioned that Temu already has a good market size in most countries around the world and has completed Pinduoduo’s 10-year journey as a domestic e-commerce company in three years.
Ali International Station brings together more than 40 advantageous industrial belts from the western region, such as Chongqing’s automobile and motorcycle parts, generators and other industrial belts.
Moreover, cross-border e-commerce platforms have become new overseas sales channels for automobiles, AI glasses, robots and other products.
However, cross-border e-commerce also faces many challenges.
On the one hand, market policy risks in the United States, the European Union and other markets have intensified, and the rise of trade protectionism has led to a surge in compliance costs; on the other hand, the cross-border industry itself has the problem of being “small, fragmented, and chaotic”, with fierce homogeneous competition, and also faces shortcomings such as talent shortages, financing difficulties, and imperfect overseas service guarantee systems.
With the introduction of the recommendations, Hong Yong believes that the core of cross-border e-commerce transformation is to break through “orderly development” and use policy guidance and compliance construction to drive industry upgrading.
He suggested that merchants shift from “passive compliance” to “active layout”, establish standardized financial and tax systems, improve management efficiency, and set up overseas entities for legal tax planning; the platform assumes data reporting and ecological governance responsibilities, assists in supervision, and empowers small and medium-sized merchants.
Yang Lipan pointed out that with clear policy guidance and institutional guarantees, the cross-border e-commerce industry will move towards a new stage of high-quality development of compliance, digitalization, branding and greening.
In the future, the cultivation of cross-border e-commerce talents, the digital and intelligent transformation of merchants, the improvement of platform ecological service systems, and the optimization of international layout deserve attention.
Hong Yong said that adjustments contain huge opportunities.
After the transformation and upgrading of cross-border e-commerce, merchants will step into brand upgrade, bid farewell to low-price competition, and turn to high-value-added brands to go overseas. Domestic related supply chains will also be continuously optimized.
Cross-border e-commerce platforms will move towards service expansion and realize the leap from “traffic operation” to “data empowerment”.
This is an overall battle for the cross-border e-commerce industry. The key leap from “scale expansion” to “quality leap” will test the collaborative capabilities of merchants, platforms and supply chains. It is also expected to bring China’s cross-border e-commerce to a new height in the global value chain.
