Airwallex Wu Kai: Digital economy boosts cross-border trade

The fourth "Belt and Road" Service Trade Cooperation Forum was held at the Beijing National Convention Center a few days ago. The theme of the forum was "Digitalization and Intelligence Drive the Development of Service Trade". Chinese and foreign political and business leaders said that they would take advantage of the opportunities of digital technology and digital economic development to deepen the upgrading of multi-industry cooperation, especially by promoting cross-border payment facilitation to promote digital economic cooperation.  

Zhang Shenfeng, Vice President of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, attended the opening ceremony of the forum and delivered a speech, saying that today's society has entered the era of service economy. Service trade has become an important part of international trade and an important field of international economic and trade cooperation, and an important source of power for world economic growth. To promote the innovative development of service trade, we must further stimulate innovation vitality and actively cultivate new momentum for the development of service trade; promote the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" with high quality, and continuously improve the level of service trade cooperation; continue to optimize the business environment, steadily promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, and make new and greater contributions to promoting the recovery and growth of the world economy.

Zhu Guangyao, second-level inspector of the Department of Trade in Services of the Ministry of Commerce, said at the forum that in recent years, China 's service trade cooperation with countries along the Belt and Road has achieved remarkable results. In 2020, despite the impact of the epidemic, China's total import and export of services to countries along the Belt and Road remained basically the same as in 2019. In the first quarter of this year, China's service trade with countries along the Belt and Road increased by 6.6%. International cooperation in service trade along the Belt and Road has great potential and is crucial to the recovery and development of the global economy.

Long Yongtu, consultant of China Association for Trade in Services and former vice minister of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, hosted the forum's high-level dialogue "Wendao". Moin Haque, Ambassador of the Republic of Pakistan to China, Federico Lach, Deputy Director of the Embassy of Uruguay in China, Zhou Chenghu, President of China Association for Trade in Services and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wu Kai, CEO of Airwallex Greater China, and other Chinese and foreign guests expressed their wonderful views and put forward constructive opinions on the theme of "Digital economy has become a key force in promoting the construction of the 'Belt and Road'".  

Airwallex Greater China CEO Wu Kai

Regarding the trend that the epidemic has accelerated the global digitalization process, Wu Kai said that more and more consumers are using digital payments to shop online, and companies are also constantly upgrading through digitalization, rapidly transforming from traditional offline payments to online. "On the basis of the continuous improvement of the digitalization level of the global economy, the optimization of resource allocation and the gradual maturity of the supply chain, the scale of online payment and global cross-border payment business is continuing to grow."

Wu Kai believes that in the global cross-border payment landscape, the region with the largest increase and the least impact of the epidemic is the Asia-Pacific region. From the overall changes in cross-border trade flows, China-Europe trade, trade with countries along the Belt and Road Initiative and emerging markets have maintained relatively rapid growth, cross-border payments are active, and Asia will become the next payment center.

According to Wu Kai, for enterprises in countries along the Belt and Road, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, there are a large number of them, but their individual size is small and their demand is relatively scattered, but they often have strong demand for cross-border trade. However, in terms of cross-border payments, these enterprises often face pain points such as low coverage and high costs. Airwallex has joined forces with commercial banks, non-bank payment institutions and other partners to build a multi-level ecosystem, which can serve global small and medium-sized enterprises, cross-border e-commerce platforms, small and micro merchants and other long-tail users through localized, low-cost and convenient payment methods to promote balanced development through digital technologies and services.

Wu Kai also said that the development of the cross-border payment industry is of great significance to activating the vitality of foreign trade. According to him, Airwallex's vision is to create a global financial cloud to enable enterprises to operate conveniently around the world. "With technology as the core, we have built a proprietary global financial infrastructure platform. The global payment network has covered more than 50 currencies in more than 130 countries and regions, providing digital financial technology products for enterprises of all sizes. We believe that globalization is an irreversible trend and digital technology will further accelerate globalization, thereby promoting the continued rapid growth of the digital economy and boosting cross-border trade. We are very confident and committed to serving cross-border e-commerce companies, better promoting Chinese companies to go overseas, and building a digital economy service platform. "

Airwallex