The coastal city of Xiamen in East China's Fujian province has been ramping up efforts to enhance its competitiveness in cross-border e-commerce. [Photo/VCG]

The coastal city of Xiamen in East China's Fujian province has been ramping up efforts to enhance its competitiveness in cross-border e-commerce, aiming for the green and sustainable development of its entire foreign trade chain, according to a local news report.

With the help of the China (Xiamen) International Trade Single Window, Xiamen has set up a public management platform for cross-border e-commerce, as well as a number of industrial parks such as the Xiamen cross-border e-commerce industrial park, which is now home to more than 200 cross-border e-commerce companies, including international and domestic leaders such as Amazon and Pinduodu. The park includes 20 demonstration projects involving e-commerce and has become the largest industrial base for cross-border e-commerce in Fujian.

Despite the economic downturn triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic last year, the city has energized new business models and accelerated cross-border e-commerce development.

Cross-border e-commerce companies in Xiamen maintained their momentum and promoted the transformation of traditional foreign trade enterprises, helping shift their focus from offline to online.

Official data show that in 2020, Xiamen's cross-border e-commerce was valued at 2.78 billion yuan ($428.77 million), and the total value of foreign trade in the business-to-consumer model was 2.56 billion yuan, increasing more than four-fold year-on-year.

All of these remarkable achievements are due to the local government's efforts to push forward the development of cross-border e-commerce. An array of supporting measures have been rolled out to boost foreign trade, and chartered flights are encouraged to attract more cross-border e-commerce commodities to Xiamen, reducing logistical costs and transforming the city into a logistics hub for cross-border e-commerce.