At a regular policy briefing of The State Council, Li Xinggan, director of the Department of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Commerce, said that up to now, China has more than 2,000 overseas warehouses, with a total area of more than 16 million square meters.


According to the 14th Five-Year Plan of the People's Republic of China for National Economic and Social Development and the Outline of the Long-range Goals for 2035, the construction of overseas warehouses is encouraged to ensure the smooth operation of the industrial and supply chains of foreign trade. The Opinions on Accelerating the Development of New Formats and Models of Foreign Trade issued by The General Office of the State Council also proposed to cultivate a number of excellent overseas warehouse enterprises and improve the overseas warehouse network covering the world. Overseas warehouse is an important overseas node of cross-border e-commerce, a new foreign trade infrastructure, and an important platform to promote high-quality development of foreign trade.


LAN Qingxin, a professor at the National Institute of Opening-up at the University of International Business and Economics, said in an interview with China Trade News that with the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce, the demand for stable logistics system is also increasing. In order to enhance the competitiveness of the international market, cross-border e-commerce needs to be able to provide localized services. Overseas warehouse can reduce the interval of the link between the seller and the buyer with the geographic distance, improve the efficiency of the entry and exit of goods, distribution efficiency, reduce logistics cost, shorten the goods delivery time, improve inventory turnover rate, shortening the period of business services, broaden the commodity pricing space, convenient after-sale service, improving the consumer shopping experience; At the same time, overseas warehouses can promote the development of cross-border e-commerce, help it improve brand awareness and competitiveness, and further explore the international market.

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Liu Xiangdong, deputy director of the Economic research Department of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, believes that the construction of overseas warehouses is an important measure to ensure the stability and smooth flow of the supply chain and realize the effective matching of supply and demand. At present, many Chinese enterprises actively deploy overseas warehouses through cross-border e-commerce channels, which helps stabilize export and foreign trade, ensure the smooth supply chain and boost the layout of overseas markets.


Compared with the traditional logistics mode, the overseas warehouse adopts the operation mode of "goods first before the order is placed" and delivers goods nearby in the destination country.


"The overseas warehouse model allows merchants to independently plan which products to export, when to export and to which markets, so that goods can arrive in destination countries in advance and better plan the supply chain." Xiong Wei, assistant to the president of Cainiao and general manager of the Export Logistics Division, said cainiao's overseas warehouses can effectively improve the cross-border shopping experience and help merchants better serve overseas consumers. Its advantages are mainly reflected in three aspects:


First of all, speed up logistics timeliness. Cainiao cooperates with high-quality logistics providers to build a global head trunk line and overseas warehouse distribution system with local superior resources for local distribution. For example, it can be delivered within 1-2 working days in Spain and France.


Secondly, reduce logistics costs and improve profits. Shipping from Cainiao's overseas warehouses to customers is equivalent to domestic express delivery, which is cheaper than shipping from home to abroad. It is cheaper and more efficient to manage the warehouse than to hire operators to handle orders and own the warehouse. Merchants can also break through the restrictions on the weight, volume and type of goods in small packages, especially when the weight of goods is more than 400 grams, the cost advantage of using overseas warehouses is more obvious.


Finally, the operation is more convenient. After the overseas warehouse service of Cainiao is used and the preparation operation is completed, the transaction order will flow to the system automatically, the outbound logistics documents will be generated and sent to the overseas warehouse for picking, packaging and delivery. In addition, the return and exchange of goods can also be directly carried out in the overseas warehouse.


Under the epidemic, the advantages of overseas warehouse are prominent. Take Spain as an example. After the outbreak, Spain's e-commerce industry developed rapidly. In view of this phenomenon, cainiao overseas warehouse operation capacity to expand. In 2021, Madrid's overseas warehouse area expanded from more than 5,000 square meters to more than 30,000 square meters, and the volume of stock increased by more than 200%. As of November 2021, aliExpress has accumulated 2 million orders, up 60% from the whole year of 2020.


It is reported that Cainiao currently has more than 30 overseas warehouses around the world, operating overseas warehouses covering an area of millions of square meters, including more than 100,000 square meters of export warehouses in Europe, including Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Poland, Spain and other countries, which can cover 24 eu countries and the whole UK. Cainiao provides overseas warehouse and distribution integrated delivery solutions, which can provide European consumers with services such as 3-day delivery in their country and 7-day delivery in Europe.


Among them, eHub in Liege, Belgium, is cainiao's largest intelligent logistics hub in Europe, which can provide rapid transfer of import and export goods, intelligent decomposition of cargo palletes, cross-border parcel sorting and storage and other capabilities. It was officially put into use in November 2021. The logistics infrastructure project will further serve the two-way cross-border trade of import and export between China and the EU and facilitate the double cycle. During the 2021 Singles' Day, Liege Airport will have more than 23 cargo flights per week.


Xiong wei introduced that cainiao has also improved overseas warehouse support services, providing merchants with full-link services such as picking up goods from China, customs affairs, overseas warehouse storage, distribution and overseas warehouse return, enabling merchants to stock goods overseas with one click.

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At present, there are problems such as repetitive construction and high operating costs in the construction of overseas warehouses. LAN Qingxin suggested that the layout should be unified and optimized in the construction process to avoid the waste of resources and malicious competition caused by repeated construction. Provide sufficient financial support to ensure the construction of overseas warehouses; Comprehensive use of information technology, improve the localization of overseas warehouse operation level; Expand the scope and content of the existing basic services to promote the upgrade of overseas warehouse services; We will strengthen the construction of regulations and standards for overseas warehouses, and improve the supervision and administration of markets, tax rebates and foreign exchange settlement.


According to Li xinggan, the Ministry of Commerce will start with five policy measures to promote high-quality development of overseas warehouses. First, strengthen the cultivation of the subject. Traditional foreign trade enterprises, cross-border e-commerce enterprises and logistics enterprises are encouraged to participate in the construction of overseas warehouses, and strive to cultivate a group of overseas warehouses with distinctive features and advanced functions. Second, we made steady progress in developing standards. We will accelerate the formulation of standards for projects already approved, and promote the formulation of a new batch of national, industrial and group standards. Third, promote digital development. Enrich and improve the construction of overseas intelligent logistics platforms, timely summarize good experience and practices, and timely copy and promote. Fourth, we will make innovations in financial services. We will encourage qualified financial institutions to launch targeted financing and credit insurance products and services, and increase financial support for the construction of overseas warehouses. Fifth, we will guide and optimize the layout. Compile guidelines for overseas warehouse construction in key countries to provide guidance for enterprises to build overseas warehouses.


Xiong Wei said that the next step, Cainiao will actively carry out overseas warehouse business deployment, optimize the layout of overseas warehouse, enrich the overseas warehouse function, deepen international cooperation, promote the local operation of overseas warehouse, at the same time, according to local conditions to carry out self-construction, joint venture, leasing and other ways to build overseas warehouse; On the other hand, cainiao provides cross-border merchants with stepped logistics products and diversified export logistics supply chain solutions based on domestic preferred warehouses, global overseas warehouses and international logistics capabilities.