Located in the tropics, Southeast Asia is a place that is both near and far, familiar and unfamiliar in the minds of most people. Frequent exchanges in recent years have given people more or less impressions of Southeast Asia. At least when it comes to Southeast Asia, people can always say a word or two. Since the 20th century, traveling to “Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand” has become something that Chinese people envy. Now more and more people have put this idea into practice. In Southeast Asian countries, Chinese people can be seen everywhere. However, this place is mysterious. We are often satisfied with a little knowledge of this land. When we really come into contact with it, we find that we rarely knock on the door of this neighbor.
1. Promotion of the construction of the “Belt and Road”
Southeast Asia is an important part of China’s foreign relations, and it is even more important in China’s peripheral diplomacy. The Southeast Asian region not only spans several of the most important maritime trade routes in the world, but is also an important raw material production area and market for China. With the continuous advancement of the construction of the “Belt and Road”, China’s trade cooperation with countries and regions along the “Belt and Road” has achieved fruitful results, the trade field has gradually expanded, and new economic growth points have continued to emerge, which has created a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Chinese companies to open up overseas markets. Among them, the Belt and Road Initiative involves 11 countries in Southeast Asia. In 2018, the total CDP in the region reached 2.89 trillion US dollars. In 2016, the trade volume between China and Southeast Asia was 455.44 billion US dollars, accounting for 47.8% of the total trade volume between China and the countries along the Belt and Road Initiative. In terms of exports, China’s exports to Southeast Asia are the largest, reaching 259.16 billion US dollars, accounting for 44.1%.
2. Promotion of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area
2020 marks the 29th year of the establishment of dialogue relations between China and ASEAN. Over the past 29 years, the cooperation areas between the two sides have been continuously expanded and the level has been increasingly improved. The China-ASEAN Free Trade Area was fully launched on January 1, 2010, marking the beginning of the zero-tariff era for the region consisting of China and the 10 ASEAN countries with a GDP of nearly 6 trillion US dollars and a trade volume of 4.5 trillion US dollars.
After the launch of the free trade zone, more than 90% of products between China and the six ASEAN member states of Brunei, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore have been subject to zero tariffs. China’s average tariff on ASEAN has dropped from 9.8% to 0.1%, and the average tariff of the above ASEAN member states on China has dropped from 12.8% to 0.6%. Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, four new ASEAN members, achieved the goal of zero tariffs on 90% of Chinese products in 2015.
The China-ASEAN Free Trade Area has promoted the economic development of China and ASEAN, expanded the scale of bilateral trade and investment, and promoted the integration of logistics, capital flow and information flow among countries in the region. For sellers doing cross-border e-commerce, this has greatly reduced export costs and is conducive to improving product competitiveness. Southeast Asia has maintained stable economic growth in recent years. According to the forecast released by the International Monetary Fund in 2015, the annual GDP growth rate of ASEAN is expected to remain at 5% between 2016 and 2021. Together with China and India, it has become the backbone of economic growth in Asia. Therefore, Southeast Asia has huge economic potential.
Against such a background, now is an excellent time to develop cross-border e-commerce in Southeast Asia.