China’s Ministry of Commerce convened a meeting to implement the Opinions on Promoting Domestic Trade Circulation by the General Office of the State Council in Tianjin on November 27. The meeting was aimed at interpreting the Opinions (No.51 [2014] issued by the General Office of the State Council) and deploying its implementation across the commerce authorities nationwide. Vice Minister of Commerce Fang Aiqing attended and addressed the meeting, which was presided over by Assistant Minister of Commerce Wang Bingnan.

Fang said that the domestic consumer market has been running generally smoothly this year, with four highlights. Firstly, information consumption has enjoyed strong growth. Secondly, service consumption has continued to speed up. Thirdly, mass consumption has rebounded steadily. Fourthly, green health consumption has enjoyed popular support. It is predicted that the consumer market will later enter a new stable and healthy development period, consumption growth will be further stabilized, consumption structure will be further optimized, consumption quality will be further improved and consumption spurring will be further strengthened.

Fang thought that in the current “new normal” economy, the fundamental and guiding role of domestic trade circulation in economic and social development is further prominent and accelerating sound development of domestic trade circulation is beneficial to expanding consumption, adjusting economic structure, guiding production, promoting economic development, creating jobs, adjusting allocation, promoting social development, inheriting culture, prospering city development, promoting cultural construction, advancing recycling economy, facilitating green low-carbon consumption and ecological civilization construction.

Fang emphasized that the No.51 Document focuses on the mainline of “promoting the system reform of domestic trade circulation and constructing a law-based business environment,” takes innovation as the guidance, reform as the motive force, facility as the basis, and environment as the guarantee, and introduces 13 policy measures to promote sound development of domestic trade circulation. These measures not only stand from the present, but also benefit long-term development. In order to carry out and implement the No.51 Document, it is very important to do a good job in several areas. Firstly, innovation should be taken as the guidance to vigorously develop modern circulation modes. It is necessary to advocate innovation, encourage innovation, improve IPR protection, support circulation enterprises to promote technical innovation, management innovation and operation innovation, and support enterprises to make use of modern information technology to transform traditional circulation. It is necessary to improve policy promotion systems, promote modern circulation modes to expand coverage areas, develop online consumption areas, support chain operation to combine with e-commerce and boost the establishment of public information service platforms of big data in the business field. It is necessary to insist on promoting development by standards, perfect laws and regulations adapting to the rapid development of e-commerce and transaction behaviors of policy environment standards, protect transaction safety and conduct equal supervision over online and offline enterprises. Secondly, reform should be regarded as the motivation to continuously deepen the reform in the circulation areas. It is necessary to streamline administration and delegate power to the lower levels, delegate enough power to correct lower levels, stimulate enterprises’ vitality, create a policy environment for circulation enterprises to be great and strong, perfect systems and mechanisms to promote the development of small, medium- and micro-sized trade circulation enterprises and vigorously lighten the burden on enterprises. It is necessary to carry out functions in accordance with law, do a good job in responsibilities, maintain the basis and offset the weakness, create public service platforms for enterprises, strengthen public information service and play the role of guilds.

Thirdly, the construction of circulation infrastructure should be strengthened. It is necessary to promote transformation and upgrading of profitable circulation infrastructure, introduce development plans or construction guidance directory of circulation infrastructure and reinforce the forecasting and early warning of the development and operation situation of circulation infrastructure. It is necessary to support the development of meagerly profitable circulation infrastructure, introduce relevant supportive policies and measures and encourage setting up integrated service centers of communities putting various functions together. It is necessary to vigorously promote the construction of public welfare circulation infrastructure, explore setting up and improving a guarantee mechanism for public welfare market investment and accelerate the establishment of a national public welfare market network of farm produce based on public welfare retail markets. Fourthly, environment should be regarded as the guarantee and a law-based business environment should be established. It is necessary to carry out the spirit of the fourth plenary session of the Communist Party Central Committee and prosper business in accordance with law and by law. The standard system of laws and regulations of domestic trade circulation should be improved and the legislation system of domestic trade focusing on commodity circulation law should be established, the unified and open market system should be set up to reinforce market remediation, accelerate the establishment of the traceability system of important products, focus on conducting special problem-addressing actions on key products and key fields and make efforts to break regional blocks and industrial monopoly, commercial law enforcement should be intensified to build a market environment with fair competition, perform supervision capacity in accordance with law and strengthen administrative law enforcement and judicial convergence. The concept of rule of law should be set up to build a commercial culture of operating according to law, accelerate promoting commercial credit construction, set up and improve credit information records and disclosure system of domestic trade enterprises and publish the “blacklist” of enterprises that break their promises.

The meeting deployed the implementation work of the No.51 Document, put forward the general thought of “full implementation, stressing the key points and accurate focusing” to carry out the document. On the basis of overall propulsion, six “specific project plans” should be conducted and implemented nationwide, including such six main aspects as standardizing and promoting the development of e-commerce, standardization of business logistics, the development and transformation of daily life service of residents, the construction of the national backbone network of farm produce, the construction of commercial credit and the reinforcement of law enforcement and judicial coordination to form a strong support to carry out and implement the work.

The meeting asked commercial authorities at all levels to further strengthen organization and leadership, regard the implementation work as the “priority among priorities” in recent domestic trade management work and list it into the agenda, study and formulate implementation plans as soon as possible in combination with the reality of regional domestic trade circulation, refine the work division, implement the job responsibilities and make sure that solid progress can be made and tangible results can be achieved.

Attending the meeting were 114 people from the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Land and Resources, the Ministry of Transport, the People’s Bank of China, the State Administration of Industry and Commerce, commercial departments at the provincial level and media.

(All information published on this website is authentic in Chinese. English is provided for reference only.)