The first webinar of South-South and Triangular Cooperation among Cities on Cross-border E-commerce and Digital Innovation for Sustainable, jointly hosted by UNOSSC Cities Project and China Association of Trade in Services (CATIS) was held online in the form of live stream successfully on August 14, 2020.

The theme of this webinar is “Towards A Sustainable Financial Ecosystem of Cross-border E-commerce”. Mr. Zhang Wei, the former vice president of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and chief expert of China Association of Trade in Services, and Mr. Jorge Chediek, the envoy of the secretary-general on South-South Cooperation and director of United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation delivered opening remarks.

Moderator Zhang Wei introduced the development trends of the Chinese cross-border e-commerce in recent two years.

Mr. Jorge Chediek, the envoy of the secretary-general on South-South Cooperation and director of United Nations office for South-South Cooperation, interpreted the importance and its influence of the cross-border e-commerce from the global perspective and explained how to implement it among developing countries and how to cooperate with Chinese government and related cross-border e-commerce corporations in the field of capital, technology and the best practice and regulatory frameworks.

Ms. Zhang Yanling, the former vice president of Bank of China and senior fellow of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China (RDCY) emphasized the meaning of further development of South-South cooperation and pointed out that financial cooperation is an important support to South-South cooperation. She put forward diversified and innovative development ideas on how Chinese exporters and e-merchants can cooperate with South-South countries and raised the issue of a common international trading method for cross-border e-commerce, which is pertinent and instructive for Chinese enterprises to build overseas warehouses.

Mr. Tang Min, the counselor of the State Council and founder of the China Cross-border E-commerce 50-person Forum introduced in detail China's successful model for promoting loans to small and micro enterprises - the Internet banking model based on the establishment of inclusive credit cooperation with commercial banks, explained the concept of debt financing, and explained how to obtain higher returns by investing in small and micro enterprises., corresponding exit mechanisms and risk prevention measures.

Mr. Liu Ran, the vice president of public affairs, MasterCard China, elaborated the history from traditional financial payment to e-commerce financial payment and successful experience absorbed from global network for building digital infrastructure.

In the final question and answer session, the panelists provided detailed answers to the audience's questions on the opportunities for young women's employment arising from South-South and tripartite city cooperation and the biggest challenges in the promotion of cross-border payment business by bank cards.