I. E-commerce has maintained rapid development

China’s e-commerce has maintained a momentum of rapid growth. In 2012, the turnover of China’s e-commerce industry exceeded RMB 8 trillion, going up by 31.7% year on year. Traditional retail industry recorded a slow growth in the first half of 2013 while online sales stood out with a turnover of more than RMB 880 billion, a year-on-year increase of more than 70%. Traditional retail industry has begun to increase the input in e-commerce market. 62 of China’s top 100 traditional retail enterprises in 2012 began to make use of e-commerce to expand sales channels and speed up the transformation and upgrading. E-commerce has widely permeated in social and economic aspects. It has become a new choice for enterprises to expand the markets and reduce the cost, a good way to benefit consumers and also a new means for government to maintain growth, boost consumption and adjust structure.
　　
II. The Ministry of Commerce has positively pushed the e-commerce development

In 2013, the Ministry of Commerce has pushed on to work and coordinate with relevant departments, made positive efforts and made great achievements in terms of promotion of legal construction of e-commerce, improvement of e-commerce development environment, enhancement of e-commerce application and deepening of the international communication of e-commerce industry.

Improved the e-commerce environment. In terms of the outstanding problems in e-commerce industry, the Ministry of Commerce combed out the deficiency of the prevailing laws and regulations, carry out studies on e-commerce legislative framework to map out laws and regulations and standards orderly, set up the statistical reports system of e-commerce to improve the statistical index and build up an e-commerce statistic monitoring system.

Promoted the e-commerce application. In retail industry, the Ministry of Commerce led the online retail and traditional retail enterprises to deepen the application of e-commerce. In foreign trade, the Ministry of Commerce put forth effort on the change of the regulatory environment of foreign trade not adapting to the cross-border e-commerce development and issued Opinions on Implementing Policies to Support Retail and Export in Cross-Border E-commerce in August 2013. In agricultural products, the Ministry of Commerce built up a national public service platform for agricultural products trade information to serve trade in agricultural products. In community service, the Ministry of Commerce also pushed the building of e-commerce platform to promote consumption in convenience stores.

Carried on pilot and demonstration projects. The Ministry of Commerce launched demonstration cities projects as well as demonstration bases and demonstration enterprises construction.

Pushed international communication and cooperation. The Ministry of Commerce pushed forward the connection of domestic e-commerce with international market, took part in mapping out rules of multilateral and regional cross-border e-commerce trade and push the free trade area e-commerce negotiations.

III. Work plan for next step

At present, the Ministry of Commerce should still abide by the principles of “regulate via development and promote development by regulation”, focus on improvement of the environment and innovation of the modes of management, strengthen the guidance and support and promote the use of e-commerce by the enterprises.

In terms of environment construction, the Ministry of Commerce will coordinate with National People’s Congress in formulating the Law of Electronic Commerce, draw up e-commerce regulations and standards, consolidate credit information resources, promote cross-department credit information sharing, set up law enforcement linkage mechanism and build an e-commerce statistical system.

In terms of application promotion, the Ministry of Commerce will carry on various e-commerce pilot projects including demonstration cities, demonstration bases and demonstration enterprises. to carry and try so as to achieve key breakthroughs. We will seek to enhance the industry development by the use of government policies and capital, advance the use of e-commerce in rural districts and the circulation of agricultural products and guide to increase the input on e-commerce regarding agricultural products trade from social capital and e-commerce platform. The Ministry of Commerce will research and work out policies to promote cross-border e-commerce and gradually set up and perfect a series of supporting system regarding logistics, payment, monitoring and credit building according to the requirements of Opinions on Implementing Policies to Support Retail and Export in Cross-Border E-commerce.
　　
In terms of international cooperation and communication, the Ministry of Commerce will launch international e-commerce communication and cooperation, positively join in multilateral and bilateral negotiations regarding e-commerce issues, take part in making rules for multilateral and regional e-commerce cross-border trade and push forward China-ROK Free Trade Area and China-Japan-ROK Free Trade Area e-commerce negotiations.

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