04.02.2019 / Platform for Consolidation of Agricultural Producers from China and the CEE countries www.16plus1cloud.org is already a fact

With the opening of the first Bulgarian pavilion in Hangzhou, the APACCCEEC set itself the goal of developing and promoting e-commerce in the 16+1 format. Given the scope of the Chinese economy, the imposition of digitization and the development of e-commerce, the Association then realized that it should focus its efforts in the coming years. That is why in 2016 such a facility was opened in Shanghai, followed by Wuhan, Nanjing in 2017 and a number of cities in China, and in 2018 the building of the Platform for Consolidation of Agricultural Producers from China and the CEE countries www.16plus1cloud.org has started. Its purpose is to make secure the connections between real entities from the 17 counties in the 16+1 format.
The platform itself does not “trade” electronically but consolidates producers – it is a digital logistics hub for agricultural and other products from Central and Eastern Europe and China. With its integrated features, www.16plus1cloud.org enables each manufacturer to connect their own e-commerce platform to the cloud (high performance cloud platform) of APACCCEEC. This is the way for real business transactions – the real e-commerce between China and the CEE countries, something that has not been possible so far. Under the current regulations, in order for a Bulgarian or CEE company to sell its products through e-commerce in China, it had to open its own office there, register a company, and have its own bank account – everything needed to be legal entity within the meaning of Chinese law.
Through the www.16plus1cloud.org platform, manufacturers can now connect their e-shops to it, and its link to Chinese platforms makes it possible for the goods to be traded in China. In fact, via the APACCCEEC platform, the e-commerce trading platforms of China and the CEE countries are linked.
The digital logistics hub for agricultural and other products, such as www.16plus1cloud.org, enables not only real business transactions, but also provides exchange of certificates, contracts, and customs declarations, etc. For cross-border import of products for personal use the Chinese authorities require, the platform that trades the commodity in China, to be linked to their customs agency. When delivering products from CEE should be clearly stated whether consumers are related to customs and whether they respond to other Chinese regulations.
E-commerce would not have been possible if the “16+1 E-Commerce Logistics Hub and Pavilion for Agricultural and Other Products” was not established in Plovdiv in 2017. If at present a manufacturer in CEE decides to send a specific order to China so that to be quickly and efficiently transported, he has to pay not less than € 40-50 / kg. The idea and purpose of the Association is to have the “16+1 E-Commerce Logistics Hub and Pavilion for Agricultural and Other Products” in Plovdiv to have the necessary quantities of commodity to be regularly shipped to China in order to achieve the prices agreed with the forwarders amounting to not more than € 1.5 / kg.
This is how CEE products can be competitive in China because no one would buy a bottle of wine for € 5 if they have to pay for transport € 60, which makes e-commerce meaningless. Without the platform www.16plus1cloud.org and the “16+1 E-Commerce Logistics Hub and Pavilion for Agricultural and Other Products” in Plovdiv, e-commerce could not be realized. This was made possible by the efforts and the consistent work of the experts of APACCCEEC in the last 3 years.
There are a number of unknowns that each company has to face individually, therefore, the processed information on legal provisions and regulations is offered on a consolidated basis, available on www.16plus1cloud.org on the G2B2B2C model.
The fact that there is free e-commerce does not mean, however, that there is a lack of control on our part or on the Chinese side. It is time to understand that e-commerce is only a method, not a way of circumventing the quality, safety and security of products.