The Bureau of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation of Guangzhou Municipality and China International Electronic Commerce Center have jointly launched Guangzhou's first state-level regional e-commerce platform called, simply, "Guangzhou International E-commerce Platform".
According to Xiao Zhenyu, director for the Bureau of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation of Guangzhou Municipality, the platform is government-supported, creating a new approach for the cooperation between the central and regional governments to promote the regional economic growth with information technology. With the aims of cost reduction, market exploration, and export expansion, this new e-commerce platform is expected to help the export-oriented enterprises in Guangzhou respond to the financial crisis, maintain stable foreign trade growth of the city, and create a new channel for Guangzhou to access the world.
The new e-commerce platform will reportedly focus on Guangzhou's key industries, including textiles, apparel, toys, machinery, home appliances, and consumer electronics. With a Chinese-English bilingual model, the platform provides basic e-commerce services such as security certification, online inquiry routing, online transactions, and e-payment.
Xiao also revealed that the Bureau of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation of Guangzhou Municipality is actively promoting the merger of e-commerce with traditional industries in the foreign trade area. The bureau will reinforce its support to the application of e-commerce and plans to help 1,000 export-oriented enterprises in Guangzhou join the platform in the next twelve months.