“The “One Belt, One Road” initiative means that China's logistics enterprises mean a new era of development, and it also means new trade patterns, new market environments, new opportunities and challenges.” China Merchants Group Commercial Director, Sinotrans Changhang Group Zhang Jianwei, vice chairman of the company, said at the 7th World Business Leaders (Kunshan) Conference held recently.

    There is no doubt that cross-border e-commerce is becoming a new form of trade. In Zhang Jianwei's view, the new trade methods are mainly reflected in the following three aspects: First, consumption creates demand. With the improvement of people's living standards along the “Belt and Road” countries, huge demand will be released, which will further promote the development of cross-border e-commerce. Second, after B2C, the B2B cross-border e-commerce model has become a new growth point; Third, the consumer-led model will become mainstream. The product-led market is shifting to a consumer-led market, and consumer demand and consumer experience will have the highest voice.

    At the same time, the “Belt and Road” construction has also created a new market. Zhang Jianwei believes that the “Belt and Road” will form an emerging unified market through two-wheel drive and bring new opportunities for the development of logistics enterprises. The first round of driving is overseas investment and international capacity cooperation, resulting in engineering logistics needs. The second round of driving is the economic development and interconnection of countries along the “Belt and Road”. The “One Belt, One Road” region will realize the smooth flow of production factors, and the emerging large market will gradually form and generate a large amount of comprehensive logistics demand.

    Of course, new opportunities will also bring new challenges. Zhang Jianwei believes that at present, the challenges faced by Chinese logistics companies mainly come from the following three aspects.

    The first is the challenge of interconnection. In terms of logistics infrastructure, there are difficulties in interconnection. The track gauges of different countries are inconsistent, there are wide rails and narrow rails, and the ability to change is also uneven. It has become a major bottleneck for the normal operation and efficiency of the trains in China and Europe. The operational efficiency of national ports along the line is relatively low, and lack of synergy is also one of the difficulties. According to statistics, the average residence time of Sino-European trains at the port accounts for 30% of the total transit time; in the port detention time, due to documents, customs inspection and other reasons, the residence time is 60%, and the transportation capacity is connected to other reasons. The residence time is 40%.

    The second is the challenge of trade facilitation. On the one hand, the two-way trade is unbalanced. The “One Belt, One Road” has more westbound cargo and less eastbound cargo. The two-way balance lacks an important mechanism, which increases the operator's vacancy rate and return logistics cost, thus affecting trade facilitation. On the other hand, cross-border e-commerce has not yet formed a unified international rule. Customs of different countries have great differences in the definition of property, tax policy and supervision methods of cross-border B2C commodities. A unified mechanism has not yet been formed, which increases the uncertainty of cross-border e-commerce development.

    The third is the challenge of an international complex environment. The so-called challenge of the international complex environment means that Chinese logistics companies must face the challenges brought by the complex international environment when they go out. For example, countries along the “Belt and Road” have high financial pressures and exchange rate fluctuations, religious beliefs, ideologies and cultures are very different, and political conditions in some regions are not very stable. This brings great difficulties and risks to the “Belt and Road” investment and construction.

    “These challenges are both difficult and a major development space for our logistics industry.” Zhang Jianwei said, “Chinese logistics companies need to change their minds and take internationalization as a new development direction, especially from engineering logistics and then to integrated logistics. In the past few years, Sinotrans Changhang has set up nearly 80 overseas outlets in 33 countries and regions along the 'Belt and Road'. These newly constructed overseas outlets have promoted China. As a logistics company's internationalization process, Yunchanghang also provides a full range of internationalized and localized logistics solutions for Chinese investment companies."