China X-Border eCommerce To Top $1T Next Year

Those seeking to confirm the potential of cross-border eCommerce need look no further than China.

The China Ministry of Commerce predicts (via China Internet Watch) that online commerce across the country’s borders in 2016 will reach $1.02 trillion (6.5 trillion yuan), marking a 30 percent overall increase and a 20 percent bump in China’s total import and export trade.

Setting the table for those estimates, the China Internet Watch story points to the facts that eCommerce transactions in China in the first half of 2015 totaled $1.2 trillion (7.64 trillion yuan), itself a 30.4 increase over the previous year, while cross-border eCommerce in the country will increase 42.8 percent to reach $0.31 trillion (2 trillion yuan) to stand for 17.3 percent of China’s import and export market.

With more than 5,000 cross-border eCommerce platforms and over 200,000 affiliated businesses operating in China, cross-border eCommerce — the outlet points out — represents a viable force for the country’s growth, not only in terms of its import and export trade but its foreign trading as well. The Chinese government has issued a number of measures targeted at developing cross-border eCommerce — which, in 2014, totaled $0.59 trillion (3.75 trillion yuan) in the country.

The story additionally shares that while the most-purchased-from country by China’s online shoppers was the United States, Australia ranked highest in terms of average single transaction volume (followed by France and the U.K.).

Although the overall slowing of China’s economy has done the same for its import and export trading growth rate, cross-border eCommerce in the country, China Internet Watch observes, is on a gradual upswing. According to the outlet, overseas shipping for the country is expected to reach $86 billion — which will account for 7 percent of all online shopping in China — with an annual growth rate of 48 percent.

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