The 2021 Global Digital Trade Conference and Wuhan (Hankoubei) Commodities Fair held the thematic event “Digital Trade and Technology” in Wuhan, Hubei. More than 300 distinguished guests, including leading experts and scholars in digital trade and economy, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders attended the conference. They shared new insights into digital trade and technology under China’s new “dual circulation” development strategy and the future development of the global digital economy.
Powered by informatization, digitization, and intelligent connectivity, the new technological revolution and industrial transformation have brought about digital trade, which significantly impacts the trading sector, fostering new business models and trading patterns among counterparties. This has reshaped the global industrial chain, supply chain, value chain, and innovation chain, becoming a major driving force for economic globalization. As one of the key highlights of the 2021 Global Digital Trade Conference, the “Digital Trade and Technology” event aims to become the leading platform that facilitates discussions, exchanges, and conversations around global digital trade.
Jiang Wei, Standing Committee member of the Wuhan Municipal Party Committee and Vice Mayor of Wuhan, delivered a speech. He shared that Wuhan’s geographic location and transportation advantages, vibrant commercial hub, and quality modern logistics infrastructure have laid the foundation to advance the development of Wuhan’s digital trade and economy. In recent years, the largest city in Central China has introduced a series of policies to promote the development of the digital economy and has achieved much success. He welcomed the visitors to take advantage of the digital trade development opportunities and invest in Wuhan for their new businesses and technological innovation.
Internationally renowned experts, scholars, and entrepreneurs, including Dr Finn E. Kydland, Norwegian economist and winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Economics; Yoshinori Ogawa, Executive Director of Marubeni Corporation, and Managing Director for Marubeni China; Wu Ying, Chairman of the Digital China Federation; Liang Rubo, CEO of Bytedance; Jiang Guofei, Vice President of Ant Group and president of advanced technology business group; Loh Boon Chye, Vice Chairman of the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) and the CEO of SGX; Tian Ning, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Panshi Group delivered keynote addresses and shared new insights into the development trends of the global digital economy, the integration of digital trade and technology, and industrial supply chain innovation and transformation.
Host organizer Qi Zhiping, CEO of ZALL Smart Commerce Group, also joined four entrepreneurs – Qian Xiaojun, CEO of Beijing United Information Technology, Mu Xiaohai, Vice President of JD Cloud Business Group; Sun Wei, CEO of Shenzhen Sinoagri; and Huang Jianwen, Chairman of pao400, during the panel discussion. They had in-depth discussions around the development path and transformation of traditional industries in the digital economy era.
iResearch Consulting, China’s leading data research organization, released a white paper on Global Digital Trade during the event. Li Chao, a Chief Analyst at iResearch and Executive Dean of iResearch Institute, presented their findings. The white paper shares the current development of digital trade from the existing digital infrastructure, policies, technologies, and capital. It also analyzes in-depth how digital trade has redefined traditional trade across production, transaction and supply chain.
The whitepaper also looked at five major industries in agriculture, steel, plastics, wholesale and cross-border trade, along with the development and business models of renowned Chinese and global digital trading companies. It also analyzes the profound changes digital technologies and supply chain services have brought to the global trade industry, highlighting the growth momentum of digital trading companies and their promising prospects by financial markets. In addition, the paper believes that with continued industry upgrading and business segmentation, there would be good opportunities for digital trade services and ecosystem-based platforms to create a new form of industrial supply-demand relationship and ecological synergy.
Themed “Intelligent Connectivity . Global Trading”, the 2021 Global Digital Trade Conference is organised by the Hubei Provincial People’s Government; supported by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce; co-organised by the Wuhan Municipal People’s Government and the Department of Commerce of Hubei Province; and executed by the Wuhan Huangpi District Government, Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Commerce, ZALL Smart Commerce Group and Hankoubei Group. At the same time, the Wuhan (Hankoubei) Commodities Fair is concurrently organized and would feature hundreds of procurement fairs and thousands of livestreaming activities, pushing the global industrial chain and supply chain towards digitalization and intelligent connectivity, and promote the high-quality development of global economy and trade.