Cross-border trade is becoming increasingly difficult? Long Yongtu, China's chief WTO negotiator, said

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Under the new international trade situation, compliance issues have become a top priority for Chinese cross-border enterprises to "go global". On June 17, Eurotax held a press conference with the theme of "Defining Cross-Border Compliance in the Next 10 Years". Many industry experts, including Long Yongtu, former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, He Maochun, Counselor of the State Council, Yang Xiaoqiang, Professor of the Law School of Sun Yat-sen University, and Liu Kaiming, a core expert of the EU-China Consumer Product Safety Enhancement Project (SPEAC), offered suggestions and advice.

Compliance becomes the key amid changes in international trade

"Compliance is a major issue. Companies must take a proactive attitude and not be half-hearted or take chances, thinking they can get away with it once and for all. We must resolutely put an end to the phenomenon of knowingly breaking the law." In his live speech linked to Shenzhen, Long Yongtu reminded overseas companies to attach great importance to compliance issues and protect their legitimate rights through compliance.

The issue of compliance is not just a problem for Chinese companies. It should be a problem for companies all over the world. In addition, the issue of compliance is not a one-way issue. It is not that compliance only exists when Chinese companies go abroad. In fact, foreign companies coming to China must also comply with our Chinese rules. This is a two-way issue, and we will also increase our attention to compliance issues.

In this context, what compliance issues should enterprises pay special attention to when going overseas? Long Yongtu reminded the industry to pay more attention to compliance issues. Minister Long believes that under the influence of factors such as the epidemic, the global economy may face a recession, and many countries will increase the implementation of fiscal and taxation policies and strengthen the monitoring of fiscal and taxation compliance issues. We must pay more attention to it and not take it lightly.

The country has taken multiple measures to encourage the development of cross-border e-commerce

He Maochun, Counselor of the State Council and Professor of Tsinghua University, talked about the 14th Five-Year Plan to encourage the digital economy, blockchain development, and cross-border e-commerce development. In addition, the 8-year "Belt and Road" policy has laid a good foundation and brought markets, opportunities, and resources to China. In the future, China will remain unshakable in the pattern of expanding free trade zones and developing interconnected development along the Belt and Road.

Professor He particularly emphasized that rule awareness should not be ignored. What is rule awareness? It means abiding by the rules that everyone abides by, that is, the awareness of the rules that countries around the world have reached. The iron must be hard itself. In terms of compliance issues, if we do well, we will not be afraid and feel at ease in any situation. We must strengthen our own compliance awareness and legal concepts.

Regarding how to gain an advantage in global competition, Professor He talked about the need for Chinese cross-border people to have a global perspective, a global vision, and a great power mindset. Those who do not stand up are not worthy of praise, and great powers must worry about the worries of the world first. In addition, innovation is still the core of global economic competition. We must innovate and get ahead of others. As long as we innovate, we will have a period of safety and can quickly gain market share.

We have high hopes and expectations for the development of Eurotax

Professor He said that the rules must be followed, but the cost does need to be reduced. Eurotax has done a great job in this area, which is also the reason for its rapid development. Minister Long believes that service companies like Eurotax can support each other with Chinese sellers, and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results. This will not only make our cross-border e-commerce better, but also promote the development of cross-border e-commerce service companies. It is also hoped that companies like Eurotax can become large companies like the current Big Four accounting firms, serving not only Chinese companies, but also foreign companies.

Control future trends and define the next decade of cross-border compliance

Sun Yutao, CEO of Oushutong, made a profound analysis of the development of China's cross-border e-commerce. In the past decade, China's cross-border e-commerce has conquered the international market and occupied half of the world's major mainstream e-commerce platforms. However, speed often means increased risks. Many countries are successively introducing policies and measures covering taxation, product safety, environmental protection, intellectual property protection and other aspects.

The next ten years can be described as a decade of sailing against the current for China's cross-border e-commerce. The challenges we face include competition from overseas peers and supervision by overseas governments, and there is only one way to deal with them, that is: compliance. There is no shortcut to compliance. Only by complying with the perseverance and tenacity of sharpening a sword for ten years can we consolidate our advantages, enhance our competitiveness, and remain invincible in the world market.

In the 1.0 era, compliance was passive and was done out of necessity for survival; in the 2.0 era, compliance is active and must be done proactively for development. Oushutong is committed to deepening its presence in the cross-border e-commerce compliance industry. We use platform-based, digital, and automated methods to optimize compliance processes and reduce compliance risks, so that compliance is no longer a burden on sellers, but is transformed into sellers' goodwill and competitiveness.

New products and new technologies, Eurotax leads the development of the compliance industry

Luo Shimin, CTO of Eurotax, revealed their latest moves. The intellectual property of MaiDeTong was launched online, and the EU energy efficiency test was launched online, which improved the product layout; the API connection with the Amazon platform and payment platforms such as LianLian and Pingpong allows customers to truly realize fully automated declaration and tax refund. In addition, Eurotax has proposed a new tax service model: pay first and use later. Mr. Luo said that unlike the traditional pay first and use later, Eurotax first provides services and then charges fees, so that cross-border sellers can avoid the commonplace problems such as slow and difficult registration as much as possible.

The famous quote "Oushuitong raised 300 million yuan, more than half of which was spent on me" ignited the atmosphere on the scene. Mr. Luo said that Oushuitong's technological innovation has never stopped, from the launch of APIs that subvert the industry to connect directly to the tax bureau, to RPA robots that automatically register, automatically download numbers, and automatically declare, OCR automatic recognition, automatic distribution, online payment of overseas taxes, official fees, recycling fees, use first and pay later, etc. There are still many planned innovations that are being developed or waiting to be developed. I agree with one point: innovation that no one is willing to use is not called innovation, so my requirement for our team is: all innovations must be "user-centric".

In short, only by using platform-based, digital, and automated methods to optimize compliance processes, reduce compliance risks, and enhance the confidence of Chinese cross-border e-commerce practitioners can we better help Chinese companies "go global" in a healthy and compliant manner.

For a wonderful replay of the entire 3-hour event, you can follow the "EU Tax Master Video Account" or directly search for the "EU Tax Master eVatMaster" public account on WeChat.

Cross-border e-commerce

General Assembly