The Impact of Trade Facilitation on China’s Cross-border E-Commerce Exports: A Focus on the Trade Facilitation Index in RCEP Member Countries

Purpose – Based on the relevant panel data for China and 13 of the RCEP countries from 2008-2019, this paper conducts an in-depth study on the impact of trade facilitation levels on China’s cross-border e-commerce exports using the expanded trade gravity model. Design/methodology – This study constructs a trade facilitation index (TFI) system, and uses the principal component analysis method to measure the trade facilitation levels of RCEP countries in 2008-2019. This result is then introduced into the extended gravity model to explore the effect of trade facilitation in RCEP countries on China's cross-border e-commerce export. Findings – It is found that the overall trade facilitation level has a significant effect on China's cross border e-commerce exports. Among the primary indicators, with the exception of infrastructure, the other four indicators demonstrate a significant impact. The findings show that China should strengthen its cooperation with RCEP countries in trade facilitation and cross-border e-commerce to better achieve complementary regional economic development. Originality/value – This paper has three contributions: first, this paper builds a TFI system that includes five primary indicators based on the characteristics of cross-border e-commerce. Second, we explore the impact of trade facilitation levels of RCEP countries on China’s cross-border e-commerce exports, which helps to fill the gap in existing studies of the impact of cross-border e-commerce exports. Third, this paper further analyzes the impact of five primary indicators on cross-border e commerce exports; this thus provides more targeted measures to improve trade facilitation levels.