Digital innovation and Cross-border e-commerce in China

China is the world’s second largest and fastest growing economy and continues to demonstrate exceptional year on year growth. Thanks to major technological developments including growing internet penetration rates, social media advances and fast developing marketplaces, in 2013 China surpassed the US and became the largest e-commerce market in the world. Over the past years, China has contributed around 30% to global growth, more than the US, the eurozone, and Japan combined during the financial crisis in 2009. China is now evolving from a passive ‘receiver’ that is influenced by global economic cycles, to an ‘initiator’ that influences how those cycles develop. Since a decade ago China was viewed as the mere imitator in the technology world that use to copy western products rather than develop their own innovative ideas. Today a global power shift in the technology sector is underway: China has been gradually switching its focus from ‘Made in China’ to ‘Innovate in China’. By understanding China’s new economic era and seizing the opportunities that arise, companies will be able to benefit from changes in the global economy and realize sustained development over the long term.