Research On The Effects Of Trade Facilitation On Chinese Cross-Border E-commerce Export Under The Background Of "The Belt And Road"

With the global economy slowly recovering,many countries are seeking new development opportunities through strengthening regional cooperation.President Xi Jinping put forward the initiative of building "the Belt and Road" in 2013,which brings important opportunities for China to establish a broader and higher-level cooperative relationship with countries along "the Belt and Road",and also creates opportunities for the development of regional trade.As an important part of international trade,cross-border e-commerce has kept rapid growth and becomes an important way to promote economic growth in the context of the slowdown of China's traditional import and export trade.Under the background that the tariff rate has been reduced to a low level,there is little scope to promote trade through tariff reduction.Thus,there is the huge potential to develop cross-border e-commerce in the region by improving the trade facilitation level between China and countries along "the Belt and Road".Based on the definition of trade facilitation,this paper constructs a comprehensive evaluation model of trade facilitation which including 5 first-level indicators and 20second-level indicators,and calculates the trade facilitation index of China and 48 countries along "the Belt and Road" from 2012 to 2017.This paper makes an empirical analysis on whether the "the Belt and Road" initiative has significantly improved the level of trade facilitation by establishing a dual difference model,and studies the policy impact of "the Belt and Road" initiative on different first-level indicators of trade facilitation.The result shows that "the Belt and Road" initiative has significantly improved the comprehensive trade facilitation level of China and the 48 countries along "the Belt and Road",among which the policy promotion effects on financial services,infrastructure and logistics,and e-commerce facilitation are most obvious.In addition,this paper uses trade gravity model to research the influence of comprehensive trade facilitation level and first-level indicators on China's cross-border e-commerce exports.The result shows that there is a significant positive correlation between the comprehensive trade facilitation level or first-level indicators and China's cross-border e-commerce exports.The impact of custom environment,e-commerce,regulatory environment,infrastructure and logistics,and financial services on China's cross-border e-commerce exports is decreasing in turn.Therefore,China and countries along "the Belt and Road" should push forward trade facilitation reform and cooperation on the basis of the existing achievements of trade facilitation construction under the "the Belt and Road" initiative from the perspective of cost-effectiveness principal.