Trade Facilitation by Ensuring a Safer Food Supply through Cross-border E-commerce

While the rapid rise of cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) brings opportunities to global trade, CBEC presents a number of conceptual challenges for policy-making. The purpose of this report is to draw APEC economies’ attention to the potential food safety risks that may result from CBEC trade and to assist APEC economies in facilitating food trade and promoting emerging trade modes while protecting consumers' health. To promote the application of modern food safety regulatory concepts in the region, especially the food safety of CBEC by air, the report compares and analyzes the characteristics of CBEC trade with traditional trade, describes the benefits brought by optimizing CBEC regulatory measures, and finally provides recommendations for strengthening regulatory measures to promote the facilitation of CBEC trade.

In this report, it is noted that some APEC economies have existing regulatory framework adequate to deal with risks of food traded in any modes. Furthermore, it recognizes that APEC economies are at different stages of development in CBEC trade and have different needs and opinions on strengthening relevant food safety regulatory systems.