Month: December 2021

(Peoples Daily Online)15:25, January 19, 2021

With their geographical advantage, overseas warehouses have aided Chinese companies to boost sales of their products.

Ningbo HOOYA Import Export Group Co., Ltd. based in Ningbo city, east China鈥檚 Zhejiang province, has built 20 overseas warehouses covering 400,000 square meters, using the facilities to not only store its own products, but also transport and sell products for other foreign trade companies.

10 years ago, the company registered low profits through selling daily necessities at low prices, now it sells more than 15,000 products under 20 categories in European and US markets. Last year, its turnover doubled that a year before.

A worker sorts parcels at a warehouse built by Cainiao Network, the logistics arm of Alibaba Group in Spain, Nov. 11, 2020. (Photo/Xinhua)

At present, the number of overseas warehouses established by Chinese companies has exceeded 1,800, becoming a new foreign trade infrastructure to support the development of cross-border e-commerce and expand the international market.

Ruston Express, an international logistics company based in northeast China鈥檚 Heilongjiang province, built the country鈥檚 first overseas warehouse in Russia in 2015. Covering 11,000 square meters, the warehouse could send parcels to customers within one day.

In the first three quarters of 2020, Chinas imports and exports through the customs cross-border e-commerce management platform reached 187.4 billion yuan ($28 billion), a year-on-year increase of 52.8 percent, official statistics show.

鈥淲arehouse has become an important link on the development of cross-border e-commerce. The process of building overseas warehouses, shipping commodities in bulk to the overseas warehouses and then delivering them to customers through local logistics has effectively improved logistics efficiency and reduced operational cost,鈥?said Zhang Jianping, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce.

Within only half a day after placing an order on AliExpress, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibabas online global retail platform, a consumer from Spain received the TV set delivered from a warehouse located in his own country during a shopping spree last November.

Warehouses also help cross-border e-commerce companies localize their businesses, an official with the Ministry of Commerce pointed out.

In Indonesia, Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com has established a logistics chain incorporating the functions of warehouse and express service, extending its delivering services to 483 cities and seven islands in the country and reducing the delivery time of 85 percent of the orders to one day from five to seven days.

Logistics workers transport a TV set made in China at a warehouse built by Cainiao Network, the logistics arm of Alibaba Group in Spain. (Photo/Xinhua)

Xiong Wei with Cainiao Network, the logistics arm of Alibaba Group, told People鈥檚 Daily that overseas warehouses give companies stronger independence to decide which products to export and when and where to export them, so that companies could better arrange their supply chains.

China has been offering firm support to the development of overseas warehouses in recent years.

In 2014, the country issued guidelines, proposing to build an international marketing network including overseas warehouses. In 2016, the government work report explicitly pointed out that the country would support enterprises to build their overseas warehouses. In November 2020, the State Council enacted guidelines on facilitating development of foreign trade, pledging to support the construction of overseas warehouses.

Under such policy support, overseas warehouses have achieved localized operation as they nowadays provide one-stop customs clearance, consulting services, high-quality after-sales services for cross-border e-commerce companies.

Construction of overseas warehouses is an important measure for ensuring stability of the supply chain and matching supply with demand in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has impeded cross-border logistics, especially cold chain logistics, said Liu Xiangdong, a researcher at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges.

(Xinhua)17:02, January 19, 2021

BEIJING, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) — Despite disruptions due to the COVID-19 epidemic, Chinas centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) reported profit growth in 2020 amid reforms to make their operations more efficient.

Net profits of the countrys 97 central SOEs expanded 2.1 percent year on year in 2020 to 1.4 trillion yuan (215.77 billion U.S. dollars), with around 80 percent of central SOEs reporting rising profits, Peng Huagang, spokesperson for the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of the State Council, told a press conference Tuesday.

The growth was hard-won, said Peng, noting that the central SOEs saw their profits plummet more than 60 percent in the first four months last year when the country was yet to emerge from the impact of COVID-19.

We had experienced ups and downs in 2020 but managed to achieve good results, Peng said.

The central SOEs raked in 30.3 trillion yuan in combined revenues last year, down 2.2 percent year on year, narrowing by 9.6 percentage points from the decline seen in the first quarter last year, SASAC data showed.

In December alone, central SOEs saw their revenues rise for the fifth straight month to 3.7 trillion yuan, an 11.7-percent expansion from a year ago.

The recovery came as the country stepped up efforts to boost the SOEs via ownership reforms and market-oriented operations. In 2020, the country started to implement a three-year action plan for SOE reform, which is expected to take reform in state-owned assets and firms to a new level.

Among the measures, a national fund totaling 200 billion yuan was established last year to facilitate the mixed-ownership reform of SOEs. By introducing private investors as stakeholders of the SOEs, the reform is expected to optimize corporate governance of the firms and enhance operational efficiency.

The companies have become more cost effective amid the reforms. In 2020, the sales and management costs of the central SOEs saw year-on-year declines, while the ratio of profits to costs increased 0.2 percentage points from a year earlier.

Tuesdays data also showed that Chinas central SOEs reported improved solvency and better debt structure.

The average debt-to-asset ratio of the central SOEs stood at 64.5 percent by the end of last year, down 0.5 percentage points from the previous year, achieving the countrys deleveraging target for SOEs, Peng said.

China has set a timetable for SOE deleveraging as part of efforts to defuse financial risks. The average debt-to-asset ratio of SOEs should be reduced by 2 percentage points by the end of 2020 compared with that at the end of 2017, according to guidelines released in September 2018.

The SASAC will strive to build on the deleveraging results and keep the debt-asset ratio of most firms stable, the SASAC said, vowing further efforts to forestall major debt risks.

(Xinhua)09:49, January 20, 2021

BEIJING, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) — Chinas online retail sales of goods rose 14.8 percent year on year to 9.8 trillion yuan (about 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2020, data from the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) showed Tuesday.

China has ranked the largest online retail market in the world for eight years in a row, the MOC said, noting that online retail sales accounted for 24.9 percent of the countrys total retail sales volume last year.

Surging online sales boosted the courier sector, with a total of 83.36 billion parcels being delivered through the year.

In 2020, e-commerce sales via livestreaming also gained popularity, with more than 20 million livestreaming marketing activities taking place.

The MOC data also showed that the countrys imports of consumer goods increased by 8.2 percent year on year to 1.57 trillion yuan.

(Xinhua)10:01, January 20, 2021

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) — The United States and China should boost cooperation on global challenges such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the competitive elements of their bilateral relationship, a U.S. business leader has said.

Such collaboration would be probably very productive, particularly over the longer term, U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC) President Craig Allen told Xinhua in a recent video interview.

On climate change, Allen noted that decarbonization is a massive job for both China and the United States. I think that, were we two work together on this, that it would make it much more safe for our children and our grandchildren, he said.

On COVID-19, the U.S. business leader noted that there is a lot of corporate collaboration right now. But at the national level, I think greater collaborate, and (at) the multilateral level, greater cooperation, would benefit everyone, he said.

If we are to value the global commons and try to improve the situation, not only in Asia, not only in America, not only in China, but globally, the two have to work together, he said.

Allen told Xinhua that American companies are not leaving China amid the pandemic, as all USCBC member companies recognize that China will produce approximately 30 percent or more of global growth for the next 10 years.

We want to be a part of Chinas global growth. We think that we can contribute to Chinas global growth, make it more balanced, employ a lot of people, bring good products, he said.

Almost all of our companies are doubling down in China, we are in China for the long term. Nobody is pulling out of China at all, said the U.S. business leader, whose organization represents over 200 American companies doing business with China.

Allen said all USCBC member companies welcome Chinese investment in the Unites States, as Chinese investment employs Americans, and brings in new brands, new software and new technologies into the U.S. market.

Both countries have legitimate national security concerns, but for the 95 percent of GDP that is outside of national security, free trade and investment flows make us both better and richer countries, he said. We should embrace the opportunity to expand trade and investment.

(Xinhua)09:40, January 17, 2021

BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) — China will surpass the United States to become the worlds largest Internet of Things (IoT) market in 2024, according to an industrial report.

Chinas spending on IoT is expected to reach around 300 billion U.S. dollars by 2024, with the compound annual growth rate to stand at 13 percent in the next five years, data from global market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) showed.

In 2024, the countrys spending on IoT will account for 26.7 percent of global spending in the sector, followed by the United States at 23.8 percent and Western Europe at 23.4 percent, IDC data showed.

Among the 20 industries covered in the IDCs report, manufacturing, government and consumer IoT spending will account for more than half of the total market spending by 2024.

Jonathan Leung, a senior market analyst with IDC China, said the country saw disruptions in the IoT market due to COVID-19 and reduced IoT spending across all industries in early 2020.

As China continues along its road toward recovery, we expect the market to bounce back in the coming years as enterprises begin to grasp the vital role of IoT in epidemic prevention and control, as well as their capabilities in mitigating market disruptions, he said.