Taizhou is designated by the State Council, China's cabinet, on April 7 to be a comprehensive pilot area for cross-border e-commerce. [Photo/WeChat account: tzfb001] 

Taizhou was designated as a comprehensive pilot area for cross-border e-commerce by the State Council, China's cabinet, on April 7. 

The city was selected due to a combination of factors, including its advantageous location, strong industrial foundation, and robust cross-border e-commerce growth in recent years, according to a head official from the Taizhou municipal bureau of commerce.

Official data show that the added value of core sectors in Taizhou's digital economy was 12.247 billion yuan ($1.77 billion) in 2018, up 16.4 percent year-on-year. The growth rate among enterprises above designated size ranked second in the province.

The city registered an average annual growth rate of 34.24 percent in online retail from 2013 to 2019.

At present, the city's six counties (cities) are listed among the nation’s top 100 counties in terms of e-commerce development. 

Taizhou is home to 39 Taobao Towns, ranking fourth among national prefecture-level cities. The term Taobao Town was coined by e-commerce giant Alibaba. It refers to towns with more than 300 active online stores on its C2C e-commerce platform Taobao.com and a combined gross yearly income exceeding 30 million yuan in transactions.

The city is currently home to 2,653 online stores active on various cross-border e-commerce (B2C) platforms such as Wish, eBay, and Amazon. It also has around 2,700 suppliers on B2B platforms.

In 2019, the city exported 1.5 billion yuan in goods via cross-border e-commerce platforms, a yearly uptick of 39.2 percent. 

Experts noted that being listed as a national pilot city for cross-border e-commerce is expected to increase the city's level of opening-up, fuel the growth of the local manufacturing sector, and help deepen the reform of financial services for small and micro-sized enterprises.