In Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou is China’s Silicon Valley

Meredith Lackey

Zhejiang Province,浙江, nestled between Shanghai and Fujian, is one of China’s smallest but richest provinces. The history of this region is intrinsically linked to water; Zhejiang has the longest coastline in China and its canals and rivers have for centuries connected the north, south, and middle of the country.

An ancient Chinese proverb reads: 上 有 天堂 下 有 苏杭, meaning Heaven in heaven, in Suzhou and Hangzhou. Sharing characteristic waterways with Suzhou, Hangzhou is the capital of Zhejiang and a favorite destination for Chinese and international tourists.

This city, whose lakes are depicted on Chinese coins, is a pulsating metropolis that retains the charm of another era while looking ahead to the future as home to the 21st-century Chinese technological revolution.

“Celebrated since the Song era for its beautiful views and landscapes, Hangzhou preserves its historic charm while being one of the most active and dynamic poles in the fields of research and high-tech.“

Since the sixth century AD, the city has persevered as an economic center and regional leader. Its modern development has roots in the historic Grand Canal, a 2,000-year-old Pharaonic opera, directly linking Hangzhou with Beijing. This was in some way also the economic fortune of the city. The channel not only connected the five great rivers of China but at the same time united the large production centers of the deep north of China, with the warm and luxuriant south.

Marco Polo, once in the Celeste Empire, described Hangzhou as the most beautiful city in the world. Now another channel unites Hangzhou with the rest of the world that reaches every corner of the planet: the internet.

“Hangzhou is China’s capital of tech home to Alibaba Group, Ant Financial and Kaola headquarters”

Known as the “Chinese Silicon Valley” or by some Chinese as “Silicon Valley in Paradise”, Hangzhou is the headquarters of e-commerce giant Alibaba, Ant Financial, and Kaola, a leading platform for cross-border e-commerce.

But the charm of Hangzhou is not simply its appearance. While China’s overall growth slowed slightly as the domestic manufacturing sector experienced difficulty, Hangzhou continued steady growth due to its burgeoning tech sector, making it the model city for the biggest transition in the economic development of China.

Chinese leadership crowned Hangzhou as the symbol of 21st century China by making it host to the G20 summit – a move largely due to Alibaba’s presence in the capital. The success of Jack Ma’s brain child has earned Hangzhou the title of ‘e-commerce capital of China’.

In April 2016 Hangzhou became one of China’s 10 cross-border e-commerce pilot cities, giving it preferential powers and special tax policies for handling foreign goods. From 2004 to 2014, former employees of Alibaba founded roughly 130 internet companies, some of which have become global giants.

The most striking cases are the fashion app Mogujie and the ridesharing company Kuaidi Dache, which merged with the Pekingese Didi Dache to create China’s Uber, Didi Chuxing. The presence of such large companies facilitates the transfer of skills and knowledge to power new start-ups, entrepreneurship, and attract foreign investment.

The Hangzhou Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone (HHTID) is also exploring new technological frontiers, such as blockchain technology. Hangzhou boasts 12 blockchain startups, a number only surpassed by Beijing and Shanghai.

”Hangzhou’s future outlook makes it the perfect host of the Cifnews CCEE June event”

Hangzhou, together with Shanghai, forms the Yangtze River Economic Zone , one of the most dynamic and innovative metropolitan clusters in China. At the same time, the city government is known to be open to creative societies and talents.

Just 124 kilometers from Shanghai – an hour with the 高 铁, Chinese bullet train – Hangzhou was chosen as the location for CCEE (Cifnews Cross-border E-commerce Exhibition) to be staged next June. The event will gather 700 exhibitors and over 50 thousand attendees, all of them professionals, buyers and service providers in the fast-growing cross-border e-commerce industry.

CCEE is an important series of events focused on cross-border e-commerce, aimed at companies that want to enter China through the New Retail. The event is also aimed at service providers and buyers who want to work with the new generation of Chinese brands and companies.

Sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce of the Zhejiang Province and co-organized by Cifnews, CCEE will host industry players to analyze and network in the cross-border e-commerce ecosystem, along with institutional partners such as the Government of Wallonia (Belgium).

Over 70 cross-border e-commerce service providers from international logistics operators to digital marketing agencies will attend CCEE, making Hangzhou – headquarters of the largest e-commerce platform in the world – the perfect location.

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CCEE 

(CIFNEWS CROSS-BORDER E-COMMERCE EXHIBITION)