"Digital Silk Road"! SCO Comprehensive Service Platform Launched to Usher in a New Chapter of High-Level Opening-up
SCODA writes a new chapter of building a global gateway and hub.
On November 25, the Launching Ceremony of the China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Comprehensive Service Platform & Seminar on SCO Trade Digitalization and Facilitation was held.
During the event, the China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Comprehensive Service Platform (hereinafter referred to as the "SCO Comprehensive Service Platform"), the first one-stop public service platform for local economic and trade cooperation in China towards SCO countries was launched. It consists of three types of applications: website, APP and offline enterprise service center. It mainly serves trade entities, logistics entities, financial institutions and regulatory agencies.
The 20th CPC National Congress mentioned that, "We will work to improve the resilience and safety of industrial and supply chains." "We will enhance the synergy between domestic and international markets and resources, and raise the quality and level of trade and investment cooperation. And we will steadily expand institutional opening-up in rules, regulations, administration and standards".
As required by the CPC Shandong Committee and Shandong Provincial Government to "deliver substantial and pragmatic results, and improve the reputation and recognition of SCODA", SCODA focused on "building platforms, creating models, aggregating industries and strengthening entities", and established the SCO Comprehensive Service Platform. The platform will provide the users with one-stop comprehensive services integrating "trade + customs clearance + logistics + finance", which lives up to the reputation of the "Digital Silk Road" that connects the full cycle, all factors and all chains of trade elements on the new journey of the new era.
Through mutual international AEO recognition cooperation with Kyrgyzstan and inspection and testing cooperation with Uzbekistan, SCODA has provided effective support for the mutual recognition of rules and standards among SCO countries. The platform has achieved effective integration of business flow, logistics flow, information flow and capital flow. And it has become a crucial measure for expanding cooperation in the international industrial chain and maintaining the stability of the supply chain, promoting mutual recognition of standards among SCO countries, as well as an important step in trade digitalization.
Once again, SCODA has become the pioneer.
01 Institutional Opening-up Broke through Bottleneck and Relieved Pain Points
To build a new pattern of development and pursue high-level opening-up, we need the support of a solid economic foundation, especially the real economy as a pillar and the modern service sector that could amplify resources. It also requires an extensive collection and distribution system as the logistics support, especially a comprehensive transport system of sea, land, air and rail.
However, "hard connectivity" is only the threshold of building a global gateway and hub. What is more important is whether we could explore the establishment of "soft connectivity" featuring more cooperation and communication mechanisms on the basis of "hard connectivity", so as to break through bottlenecks and relieve pain points in trade within the scope of institutional opening-up, and gather global resources through trade facilitation.
The pain points of international trade come from the asymmetry of supply and demand information and the disconnection of trade processes under different cultural and legal frameworks. The existing commercial communication platforms for international trade do play important roles in the connection of supply and demand information, but most of them are limited to the market level. It is difficult to rely on commercial platforms to break through the blocking points in the trade connection between countries, so the national policy support is necessary to achieve a breakthrough.
As a national strategy based in Qingdao and a new platform for international cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, one of the core advantages of SCODA lies in its ability to win more supportive national policies.
Thanks to the support of the National Office of Port Administration and the General Administration of Customs, the SCO Comprehensive Service Section has officially been launched on China International Trade Single Window, becoming an organic part of the national platform.
Based on China International Trade Single Window, the SCO Comprehensive Service Platform consists of three main functions, namely the comprehensive information display, comprehensive function application and comprehensive data release, and eight modules including cross-border procurement, one-stop customs clearance, full-chain logistics, smart tax engine, featured finance, full-scenario services, SCO New Area window, and digital SCO. It also comprises of 73 sub-functions including "Preferential Tax Rate Inquiry and Rules of Origin Prediction", "Cross-Border Credit Inquiry of Credit SCO", "Multimodal Transport of Four Ports", "Integrated Customs Declaration and Inspection" for China-Russia customs declaration, "SCO · Bank Customs Pass" and "SCO Easy Finance Chain", etc.
During the trial operation of the platform, Alhaj Mohammad Nazi Sadat of Afghanistan not only solved the market problem of connecting supply and demand on the platform, but also found Chinese buyers for 3,000 tons of Afghan pine nuts. Moreover, it also matched the best and most convenient way from customs clearance and commodity inspection to cargo transportation and insurance processing, solving problems in all aspects of economic and trade cooperation in a "one-stop" manner.
Take the cargo transportation as an example. In the past, Afghan pine nuts were transported to China by sea, or by air via Dubai, Uzbekistan and other countries, which took 20-45 days. Due to different climates in different places, the quality of pine nuts would also be affected. On the SCO Comprehensive Service Platform, various logistics channels can be provided for customers' selection. Finally, according to the demands of the company, the pine nuts were transported to China and delivered to customers in only 15 days by the chartered cargo provided by Sinotrans, an enterprise registered on the platform.
02 A Development Ecology Grows in "Three Steps"
As the scale of international trade grows continuously, the trade scale between China and SCO countries has increased by 20 times in the past two decades, which fully indicates the great potential of this market and foresees that the platform will face higher demands in the future. Since the very beginning, the SCO Comprehensive Service Platform has been designed with a growth line, enabling it to embrace future changes and create a growing and sustainable ecological circle.
The formation of the ecology requires diversified perspectives and strengths of multiple parties. And the SCO Comprehensive Service Platform is open to multi-party cooperation.
During this event, more than 70 domestic and foreign institutions such as Sakha (Yakutia) Merchants and Export Promotion Bureau of Russia, the Shandong Branch of the Export-Import Bank of China and Haier Group signed agreements on co-construction, bringing more possibilities to the platform.
Meng Qingsheng, Member of the Party Working Committee, Deputy Director of the Administrative Committee of SCODA, said that the agreements would bring together companies on both sides of the supply and demand spectrum, partners and service providers from various countries, which will empower the platform in terms of supply and demand information, overseas resources and service supply. As its "circle of friends" grows, the platform will eventually feature a broader coverage and more complete functions, and embrace the future with an open ecosystem that gradually grows.
In view of the current demands and future prospects, the platform has drawn a three-step road map:
The version 1.0 of the platform released this time has gradually taken shape as the data resources center for statistics release and information display. Leveraging China International Trade Single Window, it aims to promote the digital standardization of trade, facilitation of public services and integration of services for enterprises.
In 2023, as the ecological construction of the platform enters a period of growth, it will further stretch the branches, and the one-stop service system integrating "trade + customs clearance + logistics + finance" will be further improved.
By 2024, the brand building of the platform will enter maturity. It will be extended to empower multiple functional departments such as tax, foreign exchange, public security, and border inspection, and become a demonstration platform for digital government construction approved by the State Council.
The objectives of the SCO Comprehensive Service Platform include building a one-stop public service platform for China-SCO local economic and trade cooperation, and becoming an economic and trade information service center and data exchange center between China and SCO countries, so as to provide solutions for economic and trade opening and integration among SCO countries. Its positioning is to create a hub for domestic enterprises to enter the SCO countries and a platform facilitating enterprises of the SCO countries to enter China.
Yury Senko, Ambassador of Belarus to China, believes that the SCO Comprehensive Service Platform built by SCODA will provide support for deepening cooperation across all business types and solve complex problems in industrial and logistics chains. It will help deepen the strategic coordination, digitalization, innovation and liberalization of international trade and investment, so as to form a closer SCO community with a shared future.
03 Connecting with the World and Shouldering SCODA Responsibility in the New Development Pattern
The SCO Comprehensive Service Platform aims to serve enterprises around the world.
In the context of "two overall situations", an open China in the new era and on a new journey faces new tasks of opening-up. The report of the 20th CPC National Congress specifies that we should leverage the advantages of the super large Chinese market and attract global resources with domestic circulation.
How to leverage the advantages? How to attract resources?
Sohail Khan, SCO Secretary-General, said that he hopes the SCO Comprehensive Service Platform could deepen the economic and trade cooperation among SCO countries, maintain the industrial and supply chains within the organisation and promote the development of the world economy.
It's worth noting that the SCO Comprehensive Service Platform integrates the big data resources of the SCO, establishes an overall data standard system and provides intelligent statistical analysis and visual dynamic display of the SCO trade data in multiple dimensions. In the future, it will gradually realize connectivity with SCO countries through "single window", and promote the exchange, enquiry and traceability of trade data and financial information across the whole region, thus creating a national data sharing and exchange hub linking governmental regulatory authorities and trading enterprises of SCO member states.
This is a truly effective measure facilitating local economic and trade cooperation.
In ancient times, the geographical gap posed the biggest barrier for trading. Therefore, the Silk Road, which opened up the communication channel between the East and the West, was particularly valuable, and the regions along the Silk Road became a trade hub.
Now that transportation is no longer an obstacle, the connection of systems between different countries poses a new invisible barrier. The decoupling of information and systems between different countries increases trade costs by a large margin. By focusing on building the function of big data, the SCO Comprehensive Service Platform aims to build a "Digital Silk Road" to bridge the information and institutions among countries. Just as the "Silk Road" solved geographical bottlenecks, the "Digital Silk Road" of the SCO Comprehensive Service Platform aims to break through bottlenecks in institutional opening-up.
For instance, the module of full-scenario services provides commercial and legal services, facilitation services for foreigners entering China, think tank services, translation services and other full-cycle and full-scenario one-stop services for trading enterprises, logistics enterprises, freight forwarding enterprises and other market entities. Integrated one-stop services across departments, sectors and spaces are provided through this window.
The one-stop customs clearance enables information sharing of customs declaration documents with Russia. Through the one-time declaration documents information of the platform, China's export customs declaration and Russia's import pre-arrival declaration can be synchronously generated. The entry and generation of customs declaration data of China and Russia can be completed in "one document".
According to the plan, SCODA will accelerate the construction of platform version 2.0, further expand functional modules such as aviation logistics, payment and settlement, develop various products and services suitable for enterprises in SCO countries, optimize and improve the functions of the platform, strive for innovation in the single-window international cooperation pilot, and improve the platform continuously.
Sergey Yuryevich Belyakov, General Manager of OZON, a Russian E-Commerce Platform said, "The SCO Comprehensive Service Platform is an important platform for our cooperation and development with Chinese manufacturers and suppliers. We look forward to establishing cooperative relations with more enterprises on the platform."
This may be the shared expectation of trade entities along the Belt and Road.