Impact of Trade Facilitation on Cross-border e-Commerce: A Perspective from China

In recent years cross-border e-commerce has been developing rapidly worldwide, and its growth rate is much higher than that of traditional foreign trade, which has become a new driving force for the development of many countries’ foreign trade. Despite the fact that cross-border e-commerce trade is more convenient and flexible than traditional international trade, its development is still limited by hidden trade barriers such as low port efficiency, complex customs clearance procedures, dis-transparent policies and regulations, and many others. Based on the perspective of trade facilitation, this paper reviews the relevant theories about trade facilitation, discusses the relationship between trade facilitation and the development of cross-border e-commerce; and in order to find out the impact that trade facilitation has on cross-border e-commerce this paper also explains the impact mechanism of trade facilitation on cross-border e-commerce based on both the import and export flow chart of cross-border e-commerce. Based on the relevant trade facilitation theories this paper gives an overview of the basic structure of trade facilitation evaluation system from a two-level indicator approach, including four first level indicators, namely port efficiency, customs environment, institutional environment, e-commerce application, and sixteen second level indicators derived from the four fist level indicators. Finally, this paper proposes some recommendations on how to improve trade facilitation in terms of the four fist-level evaluation indicators with the hope of maximizing the positive effects that trade facilitation has on cross-border e-commerce.