Cross-border ecommerce becomes a new trend in global trade and Covid-19 has reenforced this trend. It substrantially transformed the supply chains in (1) ffewer intermediate firms invovled in, (2) more transparency in the transaction from origin of the production to the final consumers, (3) smaller but more freqeunt shipments generated, and often (4) the formation of different cost structure due to new channel/combination of transport and logistics used. These changes refect both the behaviour of supply chain operators serving cross-border ecommerce and the new business environment set for them. Geographically, it may bring pressure onto the existing transport hubs that have advantages in serving the shipment generated by conventional trade.
Hong Kong is such a hub under pressure. In our latest survey, we have found that while more air cargo generated by cross-border ecommerce from/to China uses Hong Kong International Airport as a transhipment place, fewer local firms benifit. We interviewed a doze of local business association in trade, ecommerce and logistics, as well as relevant departments of Hong Kong SAR Government, and identifyed some key factors that affect the level of local involvement in this business. Having compared with situation in Hong Kong against the best practices in other countries and regions such as Singapore, we establish a conceptual model to illustrate the sufficient condition for a place like Hong Kong to be transformed into a regional logistics service hub or host for cross-border ecommerce, and the processes/steps needed for that. We emphasize the inportane of synergy of mutiple sateholders along the global supply chains and cooperation between goverments across the border. We also analyse the role of quasi goverment organizations such as Hong Kong Post in comarision with its counter part in Singapore, which is rarely discussed in schalarly work in geography.
Mots clés : cross-border ecommerce|logistics geography|Hong Kong|China|suply chains
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