The Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce is organizing a webinar focused on ‘How to successfully sell products online in China’. This event will take place on Thursday 9 April at 10h00.

E-commerce and the efficient use of focused modest marketing budget have become key aspects to take into consideration for EU SMEs when developing their strategy in China. However, the lack of reliable and trustful information makes it difficult for businesses to make informed decisions. Small EU businesses should be particularly aware of the rapid growth of e-commerce platforms in China which has diversified the entry modes to the country, providing them with more channels to sell to the market.

This workshop is designed for brands, merchants, entrepreneurs and E-commerce practitioners with a solid interest in developing E-commerce projects in China in the coming future. Our expert will provide a clear and practical view of the e-commerce environment and options for EU SMEs in China and help companies assess the potential, costs, implications, advantages and disadvantages of each of those alternatives.

The following topics will be covered:
• China at a glance
1. E-Commerce market size and performance
2. Market trends
3. Chinese Consumers Behavior
• Selling online in China
1. Modes of Selling Online
2. Third Party Platforms in China
3. Cross Border E-Commerce
4. Payment Methods
5. Logistics

Speaker


Luis S. Galán, CEO and founder of 2Open China Ecommerce, will discuss the importance of e-commerce.

Luis S. Galán is an expert in E-Commerce, Chinese ECommerce platforms (Taobao, Tmall and jd.com), European E-Commerce platform, AliExpress, Chinese digital marketing and business intelligence.

Programme:


10:00 – 10:05 Welcome and Introduction by Ms. Gwenn Sonck, Executive Director, Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce

10:05 – 10:45 China at a glance by Luis S. Galán


10:45 – 10:50 Q&A

10:50 – 11:50 Selling online in China
by Luis S. Galán

11:50 – 12:00 Q&A and final discussion

Practical Information:

Date and time: Thursday 9 April 2020 from 10h

Location: Online
Price for members: Free
Price for non-members: € 65 (excl. 21% VAT)

SUBSCRIBE HERE

View from the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan, the city at the center of the epidemic in China

On April 8, the lockdown in Wuhan was lifted after 76 days. Since last week it was already allowed for people to travel to the city, on April 8 those who had been confined in the city since January 23 were allowed to leave and travel to other parts of China if they could present a green QR code, indicating that they are not infected with the SARS-Cov-19 virus. But authorities remain on alert to prevent a resurgence of the epidemic amid reports that asymptomatic virus carriers could also be infectious. People will be allowed to move around but are advised to remain cautious as control measures will not be lifted. A study published by Science magazine suggests that the lockdown of Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, combined with the Level 1 national emergency response, prevented more than 700,000 Covid-19 cases in China. Stringent controls in the first 50 days of the epidemic gave other cities across China valuable time to prepare and introduce their own measures.

On April 4, the traditional Qingming festival when Chinese honor their ancestors and departed loved ones, people observed three minutes of silence at 10 a.m. as sirens blared and motorists sounded their car horns. Members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, including its General Secretary and also the country’s President Xi Jinping, stood in mourning.

On April 7, China welcomed some good news as for the first time since it started issuing daily updates on the epidemic, no deaths were reported as a result of Covid-19. The National Health Commission (NHC) reported 32 new cases, but only one was a locally transmitted case, the other 31 being imported cases – Chinese citizens who returned from abroad. Authorities are now focussing their efforts on preventing a resurgence of the epidemic as a result of imported cases. Foreigners have already been barred from entering the country – except for diplomats and those who manage to obtain special visas – but Chinese nationals are still allowed to return from abroad, many coming from heavily infected areas. Of a total 1.6 million Chinese students studying abroad, 1.42 million are still staying in different countries and regions, said Deputy Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu. Most students choose to stay in their host country to avoid further cross infection, but China is still expected to organize repatriation flights for those who want to return home. China’s Foreign Ministry has strongly advised foreign diplomats to China currently outside the country not to return until May 15, as a number of diplomats have been infected by the coronavirus. “Diplomats enjoy immunity, but the virus will not grant them immunity,” China’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

During an inspection tour in Zhejiang province, Chinese President Xi Jinping said the epidemic situation in China is moving steadily in a positive direction, and the peak of the current COVID-19 outbreak is over in the country. The risk posed by imported cases, however, remains as the pandemic is accelerating its spread across the world, said Xi, stressing intensified management of asymptomatic virus cases in China. China will make preventing imported cases the top priority in its COVID-19 response at present and even for a “prolonged” period of time, he said.

Starting from April 1, China started publishing details on asymptomatic cases of Covid-19 on a daily basis in a swift policy adjustment in response to growing concerns that these patients might trigger a second outbreak in China. Officials were urged to monitor, track, isolate and treat asymptomatic patients properly, and take samples to carry out epidemiological analysis in order to further improve prevention and control work. However, medical experts noted that the silent novel coronavirus carriers, although deserving of close attention due to a lack of data on its scale and infectivity, is not the main channel of transmission of the virus based on current confirmed cases.

Asymptomatic patients are defined as those who have no clinical symptoms but test positive for Covid-19. According to China’s epidemiological guidelines, asymptomatic patients must be quarantined collectively for 14 days and undergo two nucleic acid tests. If positive, isolated medical observation will be continued. Individuals who have had close contacts with such cases have also been required to be quarantined for 14 days. Asymptomatic patients will be counted as confirmed cases when they start to show clinical symptoms and should be sent to designated hospitals for treatment. Chinese epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan told media that asymptomatic cases would not cause a second outbreak in China as the country has built a powerful screening system.

China hopes to test a possible Covid-19 vaccine abroad as scientists look to carry out large-scale trials to test its effectiveness. Military scientists have been working on a vaccine and the results of the first-stage clinical trials will be announced later this month. The first stage of the clinical trial for the vaccine started in Wuhan on March 16, with 108 volunteers receiving injections. A team of Chinese scientists led by Zhang Linqi at Tsinghua University has also isolated antibodies that are “extremely effective” at blocking the ability of the novel coronavirus to enter cells, which eventually could be helpful in treating or preventing Covid-19. Together with experts from the Third People’s Hospital in Shenzhen, the team began analyzing antibodies from blood taken from recovered COVID-19 patients, isolating 206 monoclonal antibodies which showed what he described as a “strong” ability to bind with the virus’ proteins.

More than 460,000 Chinese firms closed permanently in the first quarter, with more than half of them having operated for under three years. About 26,000 of the firms were in the export sector. Meanwhile, the pace of new firms being established slowed significantly. From January to March, around 3.2 million businesses were set up, a 29% drop from a year earlier. The number of business closures underlines the challenges facing China as it tries to revive its economy. Many more enterprises are on the verge of bankruptcy but haven’t declared it yet.

This summary was compiled based on reports by the China Daily, Shanghai Daily, Global Times, the Guardian and the South China Morning Post.

Prices for new homes in 23 out of 70 large and medium-sized Chinese cities saw a month-on-month drop in February, compared with 15 in January, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said. As for pre-owned homes, a month-on-month decline in prices was seen in 27 cities, while 14 cities saw growth, most of which was negligible. Beijing prices dropped 0.2%, Guangzhou fell 0.1%, while prices in Shanghai and Shenzhen increased 0.2% and 0.5% respectively. With offline sales offices closed and potential buyers secluded at home, the area of housing sold nationwide decreased 39% year-on-year during the January-February period, while the sales value dropped 35.9%. Many cities, including Wuhan, Hubei province – the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak – reported zero transactions in February. The outbreak has had a significant influence on the real estate sector due to its dampening of outdoor activities, transportation, consumption, face-to-face commerce, and services.

Li Naichao, Director of the Beijing Residential Real Estate Chamber of Commerce, said most residential complexes have been asking for entrance permits from visitors to control the spread of the virus. This prevented agents and clients from freely seeing apartments with their own eyes. In addition, individual incomes were also affected due to the epidemic, which made clients more cautious regarding major spending decisions, Li said. Slumping transaction prices also shook the confidence of sellers. Newly-released homes on property trading platform Homelink declined 57.7% in the first two months of 2020 compared with 2019. In addition, investment, new projects and land purchases all decreased significantly. Real estate investment was about CNY1.01 trillion in January and February, down 16.3% year-on-year. The area of newly constructed residential buildings declined 44.4% to 75.59 million square meters, and the land purchase area dropped 29.3% to 10.92 million sq m, the NBS said.

Xie Chen, Director of Research at property services firm CBRE China, said that with the decline of sales and the upcoming peak for debt maturity, property developers have accelerated domestic and overseas financing. Related bonds issued in January and February reached about CNY250 billion, the highest in history during the period. China Vanke’s sales dropped 35.1% in February. With the resumption of operations postponed, delivery of some 10,000 residential units in the first quarter was delayed. Sunac China reported an over 30% decline in sales in February. Country Garden announced a more than 49% drop in sales that month. The sales area of Longfor reached 434,000 sq m in February, down over 35% year-on-year, while its sales figure declined 29.9% to CNY7 billion. Over 100 real estate companies went bankrupt from early 2020.

Some property developers boosted their online presence. Evergrande pushed its ads on multiple media outlets – “the biggest ever discount in history: 25%” – in the second half of February. The discount remained at 22% in March. Thanks to the promotion, sales of Evergrande reached about CNY44.73 billion in February, up 108% year-on-year. Live-streaming was also widely used. China Real Estate Information Corp said 143 out of the top 200 property operators initiated “cloud purchasing” services – online consulting, transactions and virtual reality-backed inspections, the China Daily reports.

Despite the challenges, experts believe the impact of Covid-19 on the property sector will be controllable and only short-term, due to sustained strong demand from Chinese consumers. “The sales rebound afterward is very likely to offset the impact,” said Hou Yunchun, former Deputy Director of the Development Research Center under the State Council. Online transactions grew 40% in the first half of March month-on-month, though they’re still 20% less than in 2019, said real estate agency Centaline Property.

To ensure the quality of exported supplies, China required all medical products to obtain a certificate from Chinese regulators before they could be exported, according to a statement released by the Chinese National Medical Products Administration (NMPA). Previously, Chinese companies could export such products if they had the appropriate foreign certificates, such as those from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the EU, which issues CE certificates. However, those certificates were being handled by third-party agencies, many of which were providing fake certificates, allowing the export of substandard products. The number of such agents has surged into the thousands, compared with less than 100 in normal times, an industry insider told the Global Times. “The EU side doesn’t care whether an exporter has a medical device registration in its own country. You can get a CE certificate for medical use if your products can pass their testing,” the manager of a mask producer in Jinan, Shandong province told the Global Times.

China’s new rules allow its regulators to weed out products approved by fake agents and could help address foreign concerns over the quality of Chinese-made medical products, industry insiders said. However, obtaining new Chinese export certificates could take time during which the companies would not be able to export their products. “A qualified mask producer should obtain two certificates: one is for export and the other is the mask registration certificate granted by the NMPA. Most exporters do not have the latter,” said Li Lin, General Manager of Anhui Fumei Medical Company. As of last week, the NMPA had issued certificates for 1,426 masks, 23 test kits, 42 ventilators, 236 infrared thermometers, and 301 protective gowns, according to a list the agency released. Industry insiders believe that these numbers are significantly lower than those involving current exporters.

Apart from China’s new rules, there have also been media reports of some foreign governments tightening regulations on Chinese-made medical supplies or facing rising calls to do so, including the U.S., where regulators have reportedly banned the import of certain types of Chinese-made medical masks. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that while there are issues with discrepancies among countries’ regulations and standards for the products, “these issues should not become an obstacle for cooperation on products and materials for fighting the epidemic.”

The discrepancies have shut the door on many Chinese companies that have been in the export businesses for years. Beijing Xidebao Sterilization Product Co has been seeking ways to export its disinfection products “but we have not found the right path so far,” General Manager Chen Huijun told the Global Times. Other companies refrain from exporting their products because they fear huge fines from foreign regulators in light of tightening rules. “They could settle accounts with us afterward,” Jin Xiaobo, CEO of Zhejiang Kaierhai Textile Garments Co, told the Global Times.

This chilling effect on Chinese companies stems from the recent incidents where some small quality issues and misunderstandings have been politicized into attacks on China, industry analysts said. “Politicizing China’s medical supply exports will harm the global anti-virus fight,” an industry insider said.

Gene sequencing companies from China are also stepping up nucleic acid kit exports as demand for testing suspected patients increases worldwide. Data from caclp.cn, an industry monitoring platform under the National Association of Health Industry and Enterprise Management, showed that by March 28, detection equipment made by more than 110 Chinese in vitro diagnostic (IVD) enterprises have got the CE-IVD Marking and Free Sale Certificates. The certifications are necessary for IVD devices to be sold in Europe. In the North American market, detection kits from BGI Genomics and Lupu Medical have received the Emergency Use Authorization issued by the U.S. FDA, indicating that their products can now be sold in the U.S. market. The world demand for test kits has reached a daily average of 500,000 to 700,000 kits, according to data from Huaxi Securities. Shenzhen-based BGI, which also has the CE-IVD Marking, is now gearing up for exporting its detection kits, with export orders surpassing 1 million by the end of March, covering 70 countries and regions.

Markets and Markets, an industry research consultancy, expects the global IVD market to attain a value of USD75.1 billion this year. Multinational corporations, including Abbott, Roche, Siemens, Danaher, and Thermo Fisher, account for over 50% of market share. However, domestic IVD firms are also catching up. According to Beijing-based research firm China Stone, in 2018, China’s IVD sector grew at a rate of 18.43% year-on-year, way higher than the global rate, which was less than 5%. The sector is expected to witness compound annual growth rates of over 15% in the next five to 10 years, the China Daily reports.

China has chartered 178 planes to send 100 medical staff and over 2,635 tons of medical supplies to over 40 countries including the U.S., UK and Italy by April 1. According to the General Administration of Customs, from March 1 to April 4, China inspected and exported up to CNY10.2 billion worth of epidemic prevention and control goods, including 3.86 billion face masks, 37.52 million units of protective clothing, 2.41 million infrared thermometers, 16,000 ventilators, 2.84 million detection kits, and 8.41 million pairs of protective goggles.

Hurun Research has released a special report revealing changes to rankings of the world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs who make the Hurun Global Top 100 list in the two months ending on March 31. China added six individuals to the top 100 billionaires list, the biggest addition during the period, while India lost three and the U.S. lost two. Partly due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the world’s top 100 billionaires lost 12.6%, or USD408 billion, in the past two months, suggesting all gains made in the past two and a half years have been erased. More importantly, only 9% of those making the Hurun list saw their wealth increase, all from China. They include executives at hog producer Muyuan, feed and meat producer New Hope, soy sauce maker Haitian, JD.com, SF Express, Xiaomi, and ventilator and life support medical equipment maker Mindray.

Rupert Hoogewerf, publisher of the Hurun Report, said he was uncertain about whether the gains would be sustainable though. This “depends on how stock markets perform relatively. I would have assumed that the U.S. and some European stock markets would bounce back, but I’m not sure if that’s going to be in one month or six months or two years or whatever.” Following the coronavirus-fueled wealth reshuffle, the U.S. now tops the rankings with 34 billionaires, while China now has 29. Only two months ago, the gap stood at 36 to 23. Hoogewerf remarked that “China has closed the gap with the U.S. at the top of the Hurun Global Rich List. Two months ago, the U.S. had 13 individuals more than China in the Top 100, but now that gap has closed to 5, on the back of China’s stock market performance in the last two months”.

One way to measure the effectiveness of China’s efforts to cushion the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic would be to look at stock market performances, he said. In the last two months since January 31, the Dow Jones Index has gone down by 21%, and German, French, UK, and Indian stock markets have gone down by a quarter. In that same period, the Shanghai Composite Index went up by 0.2%. “So relatively speaking, from a pure financial economic perspective, China has done extremely well,” he said.

But the owners of Luckin Coffee were less lucky as a scandal knocked them out of the list. Charles Lu and Jenny Qian of Luckin Coffee, one of the fastest-growing companies in the last three years, lost out after a transaction fraud worth more than USD300 million led to a fall of 90% in the stock of the NASDAQ-listed Chinese coffee chain. Still, Rupert Hoogewerf concluded that “from what we see as a mega trend, the Chinese economy in the past 20 years has created more wealth than any country in the history of the world. And rolling this forward, if the economy continues to grow at a sustainable GDP percentage, then it’s inevitably going to become a much bigger and more important economy in the world”, the Global Times reports.