Written by Li Min / Translated by Mao Yuye

Pingxiang Port: Fruit E-Commerce on the Rise

Written by Li Min / Translated by Mao Yuye

How to buy some authentic Thai durians easily? Only three steps to get it: Open the shop website or connect a seller by WeChat first, then choose and pay, and the last, wait for home delivery. E-commerce, a change in the way people buy and sell, boosts trade and brings countless miracles about. Of particular note, Internet Plus has ignited the border trade development in Pingxiang, a city of Guangxi Beibu Gulf Economic Zone (BGEZ) bordering Vietnam.

The volume of fruit import & export via Pingxiang Port tops Guangxi’s import & export of this kind and even among ports nationwide since 2011, driving the boost of economic development and laying solid ground for E-commerce in Pingxiang. Fruit E-commerce is therefore becoming the pacemaker for the development of E-commerce in Pingxiang.

Fruit businesses are sensitive to the development trend of E-commerce

Since China implemented the designated port regulation for importing fruits at the beginning of 2009, Pingxiang Port has become one of ports designated for fruit import. As a matter of fact, the rise of Pingxiang’s fruit trade began in 1990s when local administration organized fruit sellers to establish the fruit association and helped deal with problems hampering the fruit trade. The members of the fruit association have accumulated abundant resources and experience for the development of fruit trade as their businesses are increasingly prospective.

What’s more, the establishment of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) and zero tariff policy explode the bilateral trade in agricultural products, especially fruits. ASEAN tropical fruits cater to Chinese market while northern China’s fruits like apple and Hami Melon are highly popular with ASEAN consumers. With tremendous demands, Pingxiang Port at the China-Vietnam border takes advantage of its preferential transport and position, near the consumption areas of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao to grow into the largest port for importing fruits from ASEAN countries.

Based on the solid foundation, ranging from market development to port resources, from position to demand, fruit sellers in Pingxing are sensitive to the development trend of E-commerce and timely seize opportunities to boom fruit E-commerce.

“We are durian wholesalers. At year-ends, durians on the market are expensive because of short supply. Originally, we sent supply information through WeChat when durians were available and got several orders. We come to fi nd that the means help us sell much more: the daily sale volume increases from 300 to 1,000 cases in just one week. As such, we can deliver goods directly from Pingxiang without need to transit products in Guangzhou and we can save a lot of delivery cost.” Mr. Zhou Wei, a fruit seller in Pingxiang, told the correspondent from China-ASEAN Panorama in the interview.

In the face of tremendous market potential, many fruit sellers like Zhou Wei prefer the E-commerce though there is a hard beginning. Pan Jianing, a staff from a express company, still recalled that Pingxiang’s fruit E-commerce met an outbreak period in March 2015 when over 10 couriers worked overtime until three o’clock in the morning to accomplish fruit delivery. He added, “Delivery is more efficient now. Sellers will package the goods and print out dispatch bills so that the goods can be scanned as soon as they arrive at the express company. The procedure takes less time ensuring that the fresh fruits can be timely delivered.” Fruit E-commerce has gone through its infancy and grown into a mature, largescale industry.

Call for joint efforts of all fruit businesses to improve supply chain

Fruits are fresh products calling for timely delivery. Fruit E-commerce business needs to manage its supply chain, from supply source, cold-chain storage to logistics, in order to guarantee the product quality. The improvement of supply chain is imperative as these companies expand their business. However, the cost of supply chain management or just building large cold chain storage is so high that companies cannot assume and accomplish it only by themselves.

Calling for joint efforts is no doubt a way out. Pingxiang China-ASEAN Fruit Import & Export Chamber was therefore established on January 30, 2016. It comprises all local businesses engaging in importing ASEAN fruits, totally more than 200 members. Then all of the members collected around 10 million yuan to build a common platform in order to better keep the fruits fresh and expand the scale of fruit E-commerce. The building of platform was completed nine months later. On October 29, 2016, China-ASEANFruit E-commerce Supply Platform, sponsored by Guangxi Pingxiang Xinmaotai Investment Co., Ltd., began operating. The platform with an area of two hectares is divided into multiple functional parts including product source center, cold-chain storage, loading & unloading center, packaging & delivery center, fruit exhibiting area, business street and E-commerce operating center. Besides, the chamber signed a cooperation framework agreement with Guangxi Postal Express & Logistics, under which Guangxi Postal Express & Logistics is the only logistics service provider designated for fruit E-commerce. At present, the platform is looking for partners without any charges in a bid to create the largest fruit E-commerce platform. The platform means, to some extent, a step forward to the improvement of fruit E-commerce supply chain in Pingxiang, as well as a center for retailors to cooperate with each other.

Workers were packaging fruits.

Local government offers “hardware support”

Local government as the supporting role of market launched a series of policies to pave the way for the long-term development of fruit E-commerce.

The fruits imported via Pingxiang Port are mostly delivered through Puzhai border market, with a narrow room less than eight hectares. Puzhai would always be packed with trucks full-loaded with fruits for at least two or three days or even fi ve to ten days in fruit season. That will not only result in the loss of fruit sellers but also a bottleneck hindering the fruit border trade and E-commerce in Pingxiang. In this regard, Pingxiang has invested 1.245 billion yuan in the building of border trade cargo supervision center. The center was in service on March 1, 2016, with an area of 42 hectares, integrating port clearance, transport organizing, storage & processing and information processing and particularly the irradiation treatment center for imported fruits. According to technical personnel, the irradiation treatment can extend the freshness of fruits. It just takes about 1 hour to fi nish the inspection of 30 tons of fruits. Its daily exposure dose can be used for 300 tons of fruits. The improvement of infrastructure like marketplace expansion, clearance facilitation and inspection efficiency will push forward with the fruit trade.

In addition, Pingxiang is proactively seeking cooperation with Nanning Railway Bureau to advance the project on the development of the railway port designated for importing fruits, and the work places for customs, border inspection and quarantine. The completion of the project is sure to shorten the delivery time.

As one of the five cities of BGEZ, Pingxiang has taken advantage of its role of gateway to the land and sea toward ASEAN for recent years to boost port economy by combining the development of port logistics, border trade, and E-commerce together. With the improvement of infrastructure and strong desires of fruit businesses, the fruit E-commerce in Pingxiang is growing more and more prospective, contributing to the overall economic development of BGEZ.