The Xiamen Municipal Bureau of Commerce has announced an expansion of its e-trading infrastructure with Taiwan.
The move, aimed at giving Xiamen a leading role in China’s ever-growing e-commerce industry, includes the proposed implementation of a highly-efficient cross-strait logistics channel, turning Xiamen into a maritime delivery hub for consumer goods.
The establishment of direct transportation links between Xiamen and Taiwan at the end of 2008 saw a huge increase in sea, air and cargo transportation between the two sides and at the end of 2013, Xiamen could boast 17,500 registered e-commerce enterprises – that’s roughly six times more than in 2011. On top of this, according to whatsonxiamen.com, the overall turnover of Xiamen’s online e-commerce sales hit 6 billion yuan (about US $1 billion) in 2013, which is roughly three times more than two years before. Furthermore, the annual turnover of Xiamen’s B2B enterprises reached roughly 50 billion yuan (about US $8.2 billion) during the same year.
The regional governments on each side will seek to expand on this growth through the collaboration of several logistic firms with one another, including the Xiamen Xiangyu Group and Taiwan Jishi Shipping, as well as Trade-Van, HCT Logistics and S.F. Express.
Additionally, Xiamen Xiangyu Group will work with the Xiamen Customs data centre to construct an e-commerce service platform, further aiding the development of e-commerce business on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. An e-commerce industrial park will also be established in Xiamen.
It is not just the transportation of goods which has benefitted from the past five years of inter-regional partnership. Passenger traffic between Xiamen and Taiwan has also increased, and for a Chinese person to travel to the USA (or vice-versa), is in fact now more convenient and easily-transferable via Taiwan than Beijing.
The announcement comes at an exciting time for the future of Taiwanese-Chinese relations, with the two sides meeting for their highest-level talks since 1949 just today (11/02/2014).
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