BEIJING--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Diane Wang, founder, and CEO of DHgate, as a Chinese representative to APEC, attended APEC economic leaders week at the 2017 APEC summit in Na Dang, Vietnam. At leaders week, Wang attended the closed-door dialogues with economic leaders, which included the president of Chile, president of Russia, prime minister of Thailand, and prime minister of Papua New Guinea. “Digital Trade” was a frequently used word during the summit, where all leaders indicated support of leveraging digital technology to empower SMEs, recognizing that digital technology incubated the new form of globalization. During her visit, Ms. Diane Wang also launched the Digital Trade Index Report and updated the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) community on the APEC CBET (Cross-Border E-commerce Training) SME empowerment program.
As the APEC CBET initiator, Ms. Wang joined industry leaders from Google, Facebook, and MasterCard to advance the cross-border e-commerce capacity building program she initiated to help SMEs as they access the global digital market and Internet finance.
Wang is recognized as one of China's top business leaders. Between 1993 and 1999, she managed the marketing service division and ran business development for Microsoft (China) Corporation. Besides a stint as marketing director of Cisco Systems, she also was co-founder and CEO of Joyo.com, the massive online seller of books and music in China, which was acquired by Amazon in 2004, becoming today’s Amazon China.
Besides being the founder of DHgate, Ms. Wang has been a key player with the APEC Business Advisory Counsel and has spearheaded the group's cross-border e-commerce push since 2011.
Recognized by Forbes as one of Asia's Most Powerful Businesswomen: Ones To Watch Ms. Wang is an unwavering proponent of the flourishing digital economy and its capacity to enable women to achieve in business.
Ms. Wang has witnessed the future while observing the rapid change in her home country of China which has been a quick applicant of technological innovation where females comprise almost half of entrepreneurs.
Background
The 2017 APEC CEO summit highlighted the theme: "Creating New Dynamism, Fostering a Shared Future." Leaders from the planet's most robust economies joined with more than 1000 senior business executives throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
The annual summit comes at a time when the Asia-Pacific region is at a critical juncture. APEC economies and business communities explored new business opportunities with the goal of driving prosperity and development in the area.
Under Ms. Wang's leadership, DHgate has been a key influencer in the overall growth of digital trading through empowerment of SMEs through digitalization.
Digital Trade Transaction Index (DTTI)
The DTTI conducts a regular analysis on current adoptions of digital trade across APEC regions, and looks at underlying success factors in pushing the development — while identifying likely chokepoints — and enhancing growth, and provides actionable recommendations to policymakers seeing additional improvement.
Key Findings
A review of the statistics and data presented in the DTTI show:
The digital economy contributed to more than 22% of the global GDP. Digital trade is playing an integral role in the digital economy and sales in APEC economies accounted for 76-percent of worldwide trade— an increase of 16% in three years.
Developing economies are taking advantage of the opportunity to overtake their competitors by utilizing best practices in the digital economy and information technology. As the industry value chain is upgraded and industry structures adjusted, sustainable development of both local and regional economies is growing more feasible.
Traditional Forms
Foreign trade has required exports to bump across supply chains jumping through hoops before eventually reaching the end-user — the consumer. Without fail, profits were diluted in the process. Digital platforms have lowered entry barriers, increased accessibility to service providers, buyers, and sellers. This process can especially be accelerated through digital trade.
With the power of digital trade platforms, a Chinese trade firm was not only able to lower their logistics cost up to 50%, but were also able to finish the entire customs clearance process in just 7 minutes from a single location. In the past, this process usually takes over 7 days to complete.
An integral part of digital trade is making the entire trade ecosystem readily available to SMEs. Digital Trade Centers (DTC) are one of the most effective ways to make it happen. DTC is an all-in-one suite for global importers. They can inspect products in person, while still enjoying the convenience and efficiency of online importing. The facilities include showrooms for product inspection, warehouses, logistics service, payment service, currency conversion, internet financing, training, and order stations. These service centers enable SMEs to upgrade their traditional business model, and give SMEs all the benefits of traveling to inspect products while staying in their home country and enjoying after sales services.
DHGATE
DHgate.com leads the cross-border e-commerce market in China. Established in 2004, DHgate has grown to include over 10 million buyers from more than 227 countries and regions while over 1.4 million sellers provide over 40-million products.
An all-in-one platform, DHgate provides services for logistics, cross-border payments, and internet financing. The American product distribution warehouses owned by DHgate all 24-hour delivery as well as convenient product returns and refunds.