Cross-border infrastructure projects offer significant economic and social benefits for the Asia-Pacific region. If the required investment of $8 trillion in pan-Asian connectivity was made in the region’s infrastructure during 2010–2020, the total net income gains for developing Asia could reach about $12.98 trillion (in 2008 US dollars) during 2010–2020 and beyond, of which more than $4.43 trillion would be gained during 2010–2020 and nearly $8.55 trillion after 2020. Indeed, infrastructure connectivity helps improve regional productivity and competitiveness by facilitating the movement of goods, services and human resources, producing economies of scale, promoting trade and foreign direct investments, creating new business opportunities, stimulating inclusive industrialization and narrowing development gaps between communities, countries or sub-regions. Unfortunately, due to limited financing, progress in the development of cross-border infrastructure in the region is low.

This paper examines the key challenges faced in financing cross-border projects and discusses the roles that different stakeholders—national governments, state-owned enterprises, private sector, regional entities, development financing institutions (DFIs), affected people and civil society organizations—can play in facilitating the development of cross-border infrastructure in the region. In particular, this paper highlights the major risks that deter private sector investments and FDIs and provides recommendations to address these risks.

In the highly developed process of "Internet plus", foreign trade transformation and upgrading, cross-border new retail rapid development has become the trend of the times, cross-border e-commerce new retail digitalization, and improving operational efficiency brings new opportunities. Reshaping the structure of new retail formats, the integration of cross-border e-commerce and new retail formats is an inevitable trend. Smart upgrading and digital transformation are important measures to achieve leapfrog development. The format structure presents business models such as "smart retail, digital cross-border e-commerce, new cross-border e-commerce, new retail, and new retail logistics". The main research objective of this project is to explore and research the new retail scenarios of digital applications in cross-border e-commerce. Based on the current development trend of digital cross-border e-commerce and new retail upgrading, as well as the economic characteristics of the Wuyi area in Jiangmen City, this project aims to use the smart new retail scenario of digital cross-border e-commerce as the foothold, with a focus on upgrading and transforming the product flow chain with the "application scenario" as the central point, form a closed-loop loop of free circulation of products, new retail logistics, cross-border e-commerce, new retail, new sales experience scenarios, and consumers.

The PBL teaching method emphasizes using specific problems as a guide in practical application, guiding students to achieve better teaching implementation results in practice. The integration of cross-border e-commerce and English teaching is a practical English course content in the teaching of English majors. In the current stage of English course teaching, it is an important method that is innovative and targeted to improve students' English course learning effectiveness. In the specific application process, the application of PBL teaching method requires teachers to provide important support for improving the teaching effectiveness of cross-border e-commerce English courses under the PBL model by building educational and teaching training bases, actively providing sufficient practical education guidance platforms, and emphasizing the innovation and richness of teaching evaluation links.

High-quality implementation of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (cross-border M&As) is an important pathway for emerging-market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) to enhance their international competitiveness. However, in comparison to developed countries, cross-border M&As by EMNEs are often prohibited by the liability of origin caused by negative political coverage. How and why negative political coverage affect the completion of cross-border M&As by EMNEs? What are the contextual constraints that moderate the impact of negative political coverage on cross-border M&As completion? Based on the “liability of origin” theory, this paper addresses these questions using data from the Zephyr database on cross-border M&As by EMNEs in the United States from 2016 to June 2021 and employing a logit model for estimation. The research findings are as follows: (1) Negative political coverage leads to negative perceptions of emerging market countries by host country stakeholders, creating the liability of origin and stigmatizing the corporate nationality, thereby reducing the success rate of cross-border M&As by EMNEs. (2) Increasing geographical distance leads to information asymmetry, reinforcing the negative impact of negative political coverage on the completion of cross-border M&As by EMNEs. (3) Relevant mergers and acquisitions exacerbate the negative effect of negative political coverage on the success rate of cross-border M&As by EMNEs. (4) Being a publicly traded firm and having successful experience in cross-border M&As both intensify the negative impact of negative political coverage on the success rate of cross-border M&As by EMNEs.

Cross-border ecological cooperation is always a challenging issue. Ecological cooperation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has its own uniqueness as it is cross-border cooperation under “One Country, Two Systems”, which is different from multinational cooperation or regional collaboration within one country. This paper analyses the cooperation documents of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, official reports and academic literature, and then summarises the unique pattern of ecological cooperation in the Greater Bay Area under “One Country, Two Systems”. It outlines four characteristics: different priorities in ecological management of each side, case by base cooperation, government-dominated cooperation with low public participation, and huge institutional gap between three sides. This article also identifies several problems and causes: lack of common ecological targets for each side and effective cross-border regulative measures, cumbersome coordination in cross-border cooperation. Finally, four feasible recommendations have been put forwarded: creating new institutional arrangements under the context of “One Country, Two Systems”, establishing the efficient decision-making platform for the inter-city cooperation, introducing the market-based resource allocation, and encouraging public participation in ecological monitoring.