MINISTRY OF COMMERCE
PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

In 2015, together with the related departments, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) positively adapted to and led the new normal of economic development, promoted the reform of development mode of domestic trade circulation, in order to bolster China to transfer from a large country of circulation to a strong country of circulation. The work of comprehensively deepening reform in commerce has gained positive progress in the structural reform of domestic trade circulation.

1. Carry out comprehensive pilot of the structural reform of domestic trade circulation. MOFCOM launched the comprehensive pilot work of the structural reform of domestic trade circulation in Shanghai, Nanjing, Zhengzhou, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Xiemen, Qingdao, Huangshi and Yiwu. This intends to form a batch of duplicable and promotable experience and patterns in the promotion mechanism, market regulation system, development mode of infrastructure and management system through one year’s exploration. It aims to lay a solid foundation for the construction of a nationwide unified market.

Since the initiation of the pilot work, the Ministry of Commerce not only promoted and coordinated the related supporting policies, but also strengthened the guidance to the local pilot work. This helps the pilot cities form pilot plans of reform with different emphasis and features. According to the key tasks decided by the pilot plans, the cities took structural innovation as the key, development promotion as the fundamental, and the duplicable and promotable experience as the goal, tried boldly, reformed spontaneously and made positive exploration, gaining initial achievements. For example, Shanghai deeply promoted the construction of the market integration and cooperation mechanism in the Yangtze River Delta region; Xiamen planned to integrate the development plan of domestic trade circulation with the commercial network plan; Qingdao speeded up the local pilot legislation on commodity circulation; and around the development of urban and rural integration and led by e-commerce, Chengdu constructed a circulation network with a smooth two way channel for agricultural and industrial products.

2. Promote the innovation and transformation of domestic trade circulation. The Ministry of Commerce issued some documents like Opinions of the State Council on Promoting Modernization of Domestic Trade Circulation and Building a Legalized Business Environment, and Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Promoting Online and Offline Interaction to Speed up the Innovation and Transformation of Commercial Circulation. MOFCOM also held the video and telephone conference on promoting the modernization of domestic trade circulation, in order to arrange comprehensively the innovation and transformation of domestic trade circulation.
Since the beginning of 2015, new types of consumption like online consumption enjoyed a rapid growth. In January-November, the online retail sales reached RMB 3.45 trillion, up 34.5% year on year. It is expected that the total retail sales of consumer goods in 2015 will increase about 10.7%, reaching RMB 30 trillion, with consumption contributing almost 60% to the economic growth.

3. Strengthen legal construction of domestic trade circulation. The Ministry of Commerce formulated the Commodity Circulation Law (Draft) and asked for suggestions from the public. MOFCOM also vigorously promoted the amendment of laws and regulations in the field of domestic trade circulation like the Administration Regulation for Recycling and Dismantling of Scraped Cars, Administration Regulation on Pawn broking, and the Administration Regulation on Fair Dealing Between Retailer and Supplier.

Formulating and Amending the laws and regulations like the Commodity Circulation Law will contributes to the establishment of the basic system of circulation facilities construction, commodity circulation guarantee, maintenance of circulation order, development of the circulation industry and the market supervision, and the building of a unified, open and orderly competitive market.

4. Promote the construction of the business credit system. MOFCOM actively constructed the credit system of domestic trade circulation whose core is taking public administration information recording, social comprehensive credit rating and third-party professional credit service. MOFCOM established the exchange and share platform of business credit information initially, conducted the action plan to promote the business credit construction, and supported Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong to carry out the pilot construction of the business credit system. MOFCOM further standardized the third-party evaluation mechanism, and issued the Opinions on Further Doing Well in Industrial Credit Rating. MOFCOM supported the development of the credit service industry and formulated the Management Method on Business Factoring Enterprises.

The business credit construction gained obvious achievements. The exchange and share platform of business credit information has gathered 1,078,000 basic information items, 468,000 operation information items and 23,000 good and bad information items for enterprises. In 2015, 21 national associations were newly added to participate in the industrial credit rating. More than 10,000 enterprises were rated as A or above by 215 associations. Up to the end of October, 2015, there were a total of 1,600 business factoring enterprises throughout the country.

5. Strengthen the system and mechanism construction of cracking down on IPR infringement and counterfeiting. The Ministry of Commerce formulated The Key Work of Fighting against IPR Infringement and Counterfeiting of 2015, basically completed the building of the information sharing platform of the combination of administrative law enforcement and criminal judicature and 26 provincial information sharing platforms, as well as the national database of infringement and fake goods. MOFCOM guided the industrial organizations to formulate the management regulations like the Management Method of the Inspection and Appraisal Center of Infringement and Fake Goods and the Identification Methods of Infringement and Fake Goods, and built the public service platform for anti-counterfeiting and tracing the sources of commodities. MOFCOM also promoted the information disclosure of administrative penalty of IPR infringement and counterfeiting, established the monthly report and random inspection system for information disclosure and went to some regions to carry out the inspection. MOFCOM innovated the regional coordination mechanism, guided the regions of similar development level and geographically close to each other to cooperate. The four provinces and one municipality of Yangtze River Delta have established the linkage mechanism for special actions of cracking down on IPR infringement and counterfeiting.

Up to now, there have been 27 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government) and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps who established the platform for the combination of administrative law enforcement and criminal judicature. 21 provincial platforms have realized the matchmaking with the central platform, filing more than 100,000 items of case information. From the end of 2014 to the end of November of 2015, the administrative law-enforcement departments have released about 30,000 administrative penalty cases, with the public rate of 30%, 10 percentage points higher than that of the end of 2014, initially realizing the goals of standardizing law enforcement, strengthening punishment of law breaking, safeguarding the interests of consumers and promoting the construction of a legalized business environment.

6. Accelerate the construction of the traceability system of important commodities. Together with related departments, the Ministry of Commerce formulated the opinions on accelerating the construction of the traceability system of important commodities, in order to arrange the construction of the traceability system of important commodities. MOFCOM strengthened the management of the pilot construction of the traceability system of meat, vegetable and Chinese herbal medicines, which ensures the progress and quality of the construction. By the end of November of 2015, the first 4 batch of cities have constructed the traceability system of meat, vegetables and Chinese herbal medicines in more than 13,000 enterprises, covering over 200,000 merchants, and initially forming a traceability network which reaches the whole country and connects the urban and the rural. The central platform has collected about 1 billion items of tracing data, realizing the information traceability management of more than 30,000 tons of meat, vegetable and Chinese herbal medicines every day.

The construction of the traceability system, firstly, strengthened the access administration and enhanced the level of safety guarantee of the circulated food and drug. The sense of responsibility of food safety of the enterprises and operators was strengthened, and it becomes much more difficult to enter into the market for meat, vegetable and Chinese herbal medicines from informal channels. Secondly, the circulation condition was optimized, and the ability of enterprises of food and drug safety management was promoted. The pilot cities coordinated the traceability system, promoted the enterprises to conduct the informatization reform and to improve the self-management ability of food safety and the conditions of fulfilling social responsibilities. Thirdly, it boosted the consumers’ confidence, and guaranteed safe consumption. The consumers could find the sources and persons in charge of the meat and vegetable through the traceability system. The consumption was safer and the consumption willingness was promoted. Fourthly, the management mode was innovated and the scientific industrial management was promoted. The pilot regions combined inspection online and random inspection on the spot, in order to comprehensively grasp the circulation of meat and vegetable, which largely enhanced the supervision efficiency of food safety supervision. Some regions integrated the traceability platform with the price monitoring system, video monitoring system and inspection information platform. This aims to carry out big data analysis and application, and realize the refinement and scientific industrial management.