Ministry of Commerce: Rural e-commerce boosts farmer employment and expands rural consumption

China News Service, October 16 (Xinhua) “At present, the development of rural e-commerce has made some preliminary progress. First, it has expanded rural consumption. It should be said that online shopping has greatly facilitated farmers' consumption, and at the same time effectively unlocked farmers' consumption potential, and is also a current hotspot of rural consumption. Second, it has boosted farmers' employment and entrepreneurship.” Wang Bingnan, Assistant Minister of Commerce, said on the 16th at a routine policy briefing of the State Council.

The State Council Information Office held a routine policy briefing of the State Council on the 16th. Zhang Feng, spokesperson and chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Wang Bingnan, Assistant Minister of Commerce, and Ma Junsheng, Director of the State Post Bureau, introduced the relevant policy situation on improving the universal telecommunications service compensation mechanism, accelerating the development of rural e-commerce and promoting the development of the express delivery industry, and answered questions from reporters.

The Ministry of Commerce had previously rolled out a number of policies to promote the development of rural e-commerce. Speaking of their implementation, Wang Bingnan introduced that the Ministry of Commerce conscientiously implemented the “Internet Plus” action plan proposed by the State Council, and put forward “Internet Plus” circulation. The Ministry of Commerce regards rural e-commerce as an important part of the rural market system construction, and also regards rural e-commerce as an important means of expanding rural consumption, promoting farmers' income growth and prospering the rural economy. Especially this year, it has stepped up its work in rural e-commerce, mainly adopting measures in four areas:

First, it strengthened overall coordination. The Ministry of Commerce, together with 19 ministries and commissions, issued the “Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Rural E-commerce” this year. This “Opinion” is also a document formed on the basis of a large amount of prior investigation and research, and is also the country's first guiding document for guiding the development of rural e-commerce, pointing out the direction for the next step in the development of rural e-commerce.

Second, it actively carried out comprehensive demonstration work on e-commerce entering rural areas. Starting in 2014, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Finance jointly launched this work, arranging 4.8 billion yuan in central government funds to support 256 demonstration counties in developing e-commerce over two years. Among the demonstration counties, support focused on the central and western regions, especially 103 national key counties for poverty alleviation and development and concentrated contiguous poverty-stricken counties. Through the support of funds, it should be said that this has promoted rural areas, especially national key counties for poverty alleviation and development and concentrated contiguous poverty-stricken counties, to form a “blood-generating” mechanism.

Third, it strove to create a development environment. It carried out special rectification of infringement and counterfeiting in the Internet field, formulated and issued the “Procedures for Formulating Transaction Rules of Third-Party Online Retail Platforms”, and, together with the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, promoted the standardized construction of the cold chain for agricultural products.

Fourth, it carried out personnel training. In response to the current shortage of rural e-commerce talent, it used the national e-commerce talent retraining and education base platform to guide local governments in carrying out education and encourage enterprises to strengthen training in this area. From August last year to now, in less than a year, a total of 200,000 people have been trained.

Wang Bingnan pointed out that at present, the development of rural e-commerce has made some preliminary progress. First, it has expanded rural consumption. It should be said that online shopping has greatly facilitated farmers' consumption, and at the same time effectively unlocked farmers' consumption potential, and is also a current hotspot of rural consumption. Second, it has boosted farmers' employment and entrepreneurship. Wang Bingnan gave an example, saying that in 2014, Gansu Province set up as many as 30,000 online stores in poverty-stricken areas, with 100,000 people employed. Another example: since 2015, for just one enterprise, JD.com, in developing rural e-commerce, it has developed 100,000 rural promoters. It should be said that the development results are still quite obvious.

Wang Bingnan also pointed out, “Of course, we have also actively carried out work on 256 comprehensive demonstration counties, among which the first batch of 56 demonstration counties in eight provinces in 2014 achieved good results. I have a set of statistics here. By the end of June this year, these 56 demonstration counties had established 81 county-level e-commerce service centers and 70 distribution centers; township and village e-commerce service stations reached 4,213, online stores opened reached 39,000, and newly added e-commerce Internet users reached 1.9 million. As for the economic effects, for example, in terms of industrial products going to the countryside, the sales of industrial products reached 58.9 billion. In terms of agricultural products going to the city, for farmers' income growth, the sales of agricultural products reached 19.3 billion, and it also drove rural tourism consumption to reach 3.2 billion.”