The rapid development of rural e-commerce will change the rural business model
On the 9th, the General Office of the State Council published the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Accelerated Development of Rural E-Commerce," setting out a comprehensive plan to guide the healthy and rapid development of rural e-commerce. Experts believe that these guiding opinions are of far-reaching significance for expanding domestic demand, boosting consumption, promoting agricultural transformation and upgrading, the healthy development of rural areas, and the sustained increase of farmers' incomes.
“Rural e-commerce is an important means of transforming the agricultural development model, making agriculture more large-scale and more efficient, and it is of great significance for overcoming and solving the problems of small-scale and scattered agricultural production.” said Li Daoliang, a professor at China Agricultural University.
At present, the development of rural e-commerce in China is still in its initial stage, and its development has such features as fast, broad and hot: the number of rural online shopping users and the scale of online shopping are growing rapidly; the coverage is becoming broader and broader; and all sectors of society are actively investing in the development of rural e-commerce. Data show that in the first 9 months of this year, online retail sales of fresh agricultural products reached 38 billion yuan, more than 1.5 times the total for all of last year.
The reporter learned from the Ministry of Agriculture that China's agricultural e-commerce is currently forming a development pattern in which cross-regional e-commerce platforms and local e-commerce platforms develop together, the eastern, central and western regions all compete to advance, and agricultural products going to the cities and industrial goods going to the countryside interact in both directions.
Wang Xiaobing, deputy director of the Department of Market and Economic Information of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that developing rural e-commerce is an important platform for mass entrepreneurship and innovation, and also an inevitable requirement for accelerating the building of modern agriculture.
Industry insiders said that the rapid development of rural e-commerce will greatly change the rural business model. On the one hand, it makes shopping more convenient and quicker for farmers and enriches their shopping choices; on the other hand, it helps local agricultural products be sold to cities and other places, enriching the sales channels for agricultural products. With the establishment of two-way channels for online goods going to the countryside and agricultural products going to the cities, e-commerce will further drive markets such as rural tourism, rural medical care and financial services, better improve farmers' lives, and promote integrated urban-rural development.
The opinions take cultivating market entities for rural e-commerce, expanding the application of e-commerce in agriculture and rural areas, and improving the development environment for rural e-commerce as three key tasks.
“E-commerce is extending from the transaction stage to both ends of production and consumption, and to stages such as refrigeration, transport and packaging.” Wang Xiaobing said. At the same time, it is also expanding from being mainly focused on dried goods in the past few years to the entire range of agricultural products, including fresh products, financing, and leisure and sightseeing agriculture. A variety of business models are constantly innovating and emerging.
The opinions propose that by 2020, a rural e-commerce market system that is unified and open, orderly in competition, honest and law-abiding, safe and reliable, and green and environmentally friendly will be initially established.
Li Daoliang believes that rural e-commerce is a systematic project that requires multi-level and multi-faceted system building. The opinions have precisely made plans in terms of top-level design and overall layout, pointing out the direction for the future development of rural e-commerce.
While China's rural e-commerce is developing rapidly, it still faces some difficulties and challenges: the degree of standardization is not high, and a standards system has not yet been established; there is a shortage of rural e-commerce talent, among other issues.
The opinions clearly put forward policy measures in seven areas, including strengthening policy support, encouraging and supporting pioneering and innovation, vigorously cultivating rural e-commerce talent, accelerating the improvement of the rural logistics system, strengthening rural infrastructure construction, increasing financial support, and creating a standardized and orderly market environment.
Cao Lei, director of the China E-Commerce Research Center, said that in terms of e-commerce talent training, the government and enterprises should work together to provide good practical conditions for trainees. In addition to basic training, the government also needs to carry out forward-looking planning and arrangements, increase enrollment for e-commerce professionals, and pay attention to exchanges with major domestic online trading platform companies.
China's rural e-commerce has broad development prospects. Experts said that in the future, through the continuous development of e-commerce, it will further guide broad social investment into research and innovation in rural e-commerce, and make coordinated progress in the development of e-commerce for agricultural products, agricultural production materials and leisure and sightseeing agriculture.