New handbooks help CEEC entrepreneurs use China's e-commerce platforms

An intergovernmental association has published two handbooks to help entrepreneurs in the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) use Chinese e-commerce platforms and export bioproducts to China.

The two books are the latest additions to the "Young Entrepreneurs" series published by the Association for the Promotion of Agricultural Cooperation between China and the CEEC (APACCCEEC) and distributed free of charge.

The first of the two handbooks details the requirements for registration, the types of shops and the related fees on e-commerce platforms such as Kaola (for companies from over 80 countries that want to sell goods in China) and Taobao (the most popular, with nearly 500 million registered users), the association said in a press release on its website.

The process for certification of bioplant products, wild plants, edible mushrooms, bio-aquatic products, bio-livestock and birds is presented in detail in the other book entitled "Handbook for Certification of Imported Bioproducts in China".

Vasil Gelev, director of the APACCCEEC, told Xinhua that the current travel restrictions were one of the reasons why the association decided to publish the handbook on e-commerce platforms in China.

"The book itself was conceived much earlier, as it is a well-known fact that the APACCCEEC has been trying for many years to establish e-commerce as one of the possible ways of trade between China and the CEEC, mainly in order to shorten the supply chain and promote products on the Chinese market," Gelev said.

As for the second handbook, it was needed because Chinese legislation on certification of organic products is radically different from that in the European Union, Gelev said.

Established at intergovernmental level in Sofia in June 2015, the APACCCEEC coordinates the activities of the two countries' ministries on the one hand and those of their businesses on the other.

In December 2019, the association already published four other handbooks in the "Young Entrepreneurs" series. They provide details on the registration of trademarks and service marks in China; the import of agricultural and other products into China; cross-border e-commerce between China and the CEEC; and the WeChat e-store.