Development of E-commerce in Rural Areas in 2016

At present, e-commerce in rural areas enjoys a rapid development, and has developed from a single spark to a big fire that can burn the whole the prairie. The situation that various economic entities coordinate with large-scale e-commerce enterprises has initially formed, playing a positive role in economic development, increasing rural income and optimizing people’s livelihood of rural areas, especially poverty-stricken areas.

   In 2016, online retail sales of rural areas reached 894.54 billion yuan, accounting for 17.4% of the national total of online retail sales. Among these, online retail sales of physical goods was 579.24 billion yuan, and online retail sales of service was 315.3 billion yuan. The quarterly growth rate of rural online retail sales in the year was higher than that of urban areas. In eastern China, rural areas enjoyed good industrial base, and e-commerce enjoyed high permeability, thus the online retail sales reached 566.08 billion yuan, accounting for 63.3% of the national total. Central and western China developed rapidly with the average quarterly growth rate reaching 16.6%, 3.2 percentage points higher than that of Eastern China.

    In 2014-2017, for 4 consecutive years, Document NO.1 of the central government clearly proposed to develop rural e-commerce. MOFCOM is, together with related departments, accelerating the comprehensive demonstration work of e-commerce in rural areas. 

     In 2017, we will continue to strengthen the driving role of rural e-commerce to rural economy, focus on the upstream, strengthen the capacity construction of public service, promote the e-commerce development of agricultural products, rural industrial products and rural tourism service, and strengthen the power of well-targeted poverty relief, so as to benefit the majority of farmers.