The coastal city of Xiamen in East China's Fujian province is approved as a cross-border e-commerce pilot zone in 2018. [Photo/xmnn.cn]

The State Council has announced that the country will establish 46 new pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce to promote the stable development of foreign trade, three of the new zones in cities in Fujian province – Zhangzhou, Putian and Longyan – bringing the number of the zones in the province to six.

According to the approval of the State Council, the new cross-border e-commerce pilot zones will enjoy preferential policies such as exemptions on value-added and excise taxes on retail exports.

As an emerging business form, cross-border e-commerce has been surging rapidly in Fujian in recently years thanks to support from the province's department of commerce.

The province has beefed up its efforts to accelerate the development of e-commerce regulatory mechanisms and infrastructure construction. Innovative approaches related to cross-border e-commerce, including technical standards, business processes, supervision models and information construction, were carried out to promote the all-round development of its cross-border e-commerce.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, traditional foreign trade sectors in the country were hit hard by the epidemic, while cross-border e-commerce showed significant signs of development. 

Statistics from Fujian Customs show that cross-border e-commerce imports and exports in the province totaled 2.38 billion yuan ($335.5 million) in the first three months of this year, equaling last year's total and 7.6 times greater than in the same period last year. This growth has injected new vitality into the development of the province's foreign trade.

Authorities said that the approval to set up pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce in Zhangzhou, Putian and Longyan will help further promote growth in local foreign trade, boost economic vitality in these cities and help their local governments attract more investment.