China once again has come to the aid of the Australian stockmarket when lately it has been the sell-off and nervousness about the Trump trade war with our biggest export market and the health of the country’s huge economy.
The Chinese government announced overnight Wednesday that they had agreed to delay the implementation of new rules controlling e-commerce transactions.
In fact, it looks like the delay will be long lasting, the current rules won’t change, they will apply to more cities and regions in China (such as Beijing) and will now apply to 63 more categories of “high demand goods”.
This means the threat of lengthy and difficult re-registration procedures will now not happen.
The news helped the ASX jump 48 points or 0.8% in a solid day’s trading yesterday.
That was powered by shares in some of the best performers in dairying and vitamins – for example, Blackmore’s shares leaped 5.9% to $133.40, A2Milk shares were up 5.8% at $9.90, Bellamy’s shares rose 4.7% to $7.55 and Bega shares were up 2.1% to $5.75.
Shares in Treasury Wine Estates jumped more than 5.7% to $14.29 in the wake of the news. China is its biggest market and the ruling is seen as helping it continue to grow that market.
China said existing policies on cross-border eCommerce retail imports would continue from January.
There would be no new requirements on importers for licensing, registration or record-filing.
The Chinese media report said:
The Wednesday meeting decided that starting from next January, the current policies on cross-border e-commerce retail imports will continue.
“No requirements of licensing, registration or record-filing for first-time imports shall apply to the retail imports through cross-border e-commerce platforms. Instead, these goods will receive more relaxed regulation as imports for personal use.
“Moreover, implementation of this policy will be extended from the 15 cities such as Hangzhou to another 22 cities such as Beijing which have just established comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zones.
“Goods included in the cross-border e-commerce retail imports list have so far enjoyed zero tariffs within a set quota and had their import VAT and consumer tax collected at 70 percent of the statutory taxable amount. Such preferential policies will be extended to another 63 tax categories of high-demand goods,” the Xinhua report stated.
“Cross-border e-commerce businesses, online platforms and payment and logistics service providers must fully discharge their responsibilities required by law, the meeting urged. Product quality and safety inspection and risk prevention and control should be strengthened for fair competition in the marketplace and better protection of consumer rights and interests.
