Coarse grains move online for sale: Ministry of Commerce encourages e-commerce in rural areas to alleviate poverty

Yesterday (September 7), Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Shen Danyang said at a press conference that the Ministry of Commerce will adopt ten specific measures to promote rural e-commerce.

A few days ago, the Ministry of Commerce and 19 other departments issued the "Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Rural E-Commerce." Shen Danyang said that in building rural e-commerce, importance must be attached to building a new-type rural circulation network for daily consumer goods, using modern information technology to promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional production and business entities, innovating business models, and achieving integrated online and offline development. A reporter from National Business Daily learned that the Ministry of Commerce will focus efforts in three major areas: cultivating market entities for rural e-commerce, strengthening rural e-commerce infrastructure construction, and creating a policy environment, encouraging e-commerce, logistics, commerce, finance, postal services, express delivery and other types of capital to participate in the development of rural e-commerce.

Five key tasks determined

A review by the reporter found that since 2014, in just over a year, five policies on building the rural e-commerce system have been issued. The 2014 No. 1 Central Document proposed "launching the informatization project for rural circulation facilities." The 2015 No. 1 Central Document further clarified the need to "carry out comprehensive demonstrations for e-commerce entering rural areas." At the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Premier Li Keqiang proposed the "Internet Plus" action plan for the first time in the government work report. On May 4, the State Council issued the "Opinions on Vigorously Developing E-Commerce and Accelerating the Cultivation of New Economic Momentum," requiring research and formulation of opinions on promoting rural e-commerce development, with the Ministry of Commerce taking the lead in the division of work. Subsequently, the Ministry of Commerce and 19 other departments jointly formulated the "Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Rural E-Commerce" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions").

In fact, although rural e-commerce has developed rapidly in recent years, it is still generally in the initial stage of development, with problems such as underdeveloped market entities, lagging infrastructure such as logistics distribution, an imperfect development environment, and a shortage of talent.

Zhang Li, deputy director of the E-Commerce Research Department of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce, believes that although the industry calls rural e-commerce a "blue ocean," in the first half of this year China's rural e-commerce accounted for only about 2.5% of total agricultural product sales. Due to relatively high logistics distribution costs, the penetration rate of rural e-commerce remains relatively low, while multiple barriers such as farmers' degree of acceptance of Internet business models, rural network and other infrastructure construction, logistics distribution efficiency, product standardization, talent, and management experience have also constrained the "pace" of e-commerce entering rural areas.

In response to the above problems, the "Opinions" laid out five key tasks for developing rural e-commerce: first, build a new-type rural circulation network for daily consumer goods to achieve integrated online and offline development; second, promote e-commerce for rural products, cultivate agricultural product brands, and increase the commercialization rate and the proportion of e-commerce transactions; third, develop e-commerce for agricultural production materials; fourth, develop rural service industries; fifth, promote e-commerce poverty alleviation, innovate the working mechanism for poverty alleviation and development, incorporate e-commerce into the poverty alleviation and development work system, enhance poor people's ability to use e-commerce to start businesses and find employment, and promote sales of specialty agricultural and sideline products and tourism products in poverty-stricken areas.

Yesterday, the responsible person of the Market Construction Department of the Ministry of Commerce said when interpreting the "Opinions" that the Ministry of Commerce will take ten measures in three areas - cultivating market entities for rural e-commerce, building rural e-commerce infrastructure, and creating a policy and service environment - to promote this, encourage e-commerce, logistics, commerce, finance, postal services, express delivery and other types of capital to participate in the development of rural e-commerce, cultivate rural e-commerce service enterprises, strengthen the construction of rural broadband, roads and other facilities, improve the compensation mechanism for universal telecommunications services, and promote faster and more affordable broadband networks.

E-commerce incorporated into poverty alleviation system

"The most prominent significance of developing agricultural product e-commerce is to solve the real problems of China's agricultural product market management information being relatively lagging and agricultural product circulation problems being relatively prominent," said Li Guoxiang, a researcher at the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He believes that "to solve problems such as low efficiency in circulation links, large losses, and difficulty in keeping products fresh, it is still necessary to return to the construction of the logistics system."

As one of the important tasks in developing rural e-commerce, e-commerce has been incorporated into the poverty alleviation and development work system.

It is understood that developing rural e-commerce in poverty-stricken areas will be devoted to enhancing poor people's ability to use e-commerce to start businesses and find employment, and promoting sales of specialty agricultural and sideline products and tourism products in poverty-stricken areas. At present, the "E-Commerce Poverty Alleviation Project" led by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development has begun implementation.

Data shows that China has lifted more than 600 million people out of poverty, becoming the first country in the world to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people living in poverty, but there are still more than 120,000 poverty-stricken villages and more than 70 million poor people nationwide. According to the plan, they will all be lifted out of poverty by 2020.

Qu Tianjun, inspector of the Department of International Cooperation and Social Poverty Alleviation of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, said a few days ago that "at present, Shandong, Gansu and many other places have issued 'e-commerce poverty alleviation' documents, and will integrate advantageous products in poverty-stricken areas to connect with the market through methods such as 'platform + park + training.'"

According to the list of 200 demonstration counties for the 2015 comprehensive demonstration work of e-commerce entering rural areas recently announced by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Commerce, 2 billion yuan in special funds will be arranged to support rural e-commerce, with priority given to building a three-tier logistics distribution system at the county, township, and village levels.

Under the impetus of policy, many places have already explored "e-commerce" poverty alleviation.

As a national-level poverty-stricken county, Fuping County in Hebei is also a member of the "poverty belt around the capital." In 2014, it launched the Taobao Featured China · Fuping Pavilion, which was also the country's first county-level O2O e-commerce experience store. Within half a year, online sales of local specialty agricultural products such as Fuping jujubes and coarse grains exceeded 700,000 yuan. According to Fuping's experience, e-commerce poverty alleviation requires laying out a rural e-commerce network from county to township, to cooperatives, and then to villages, households, and individuals.

In Longnan, Gansu, nearly 6,000 online stores have been opened citywide, driving an average income increase of more than 240 yuan per poor person. At the same time, Gansu will also promote e-commerce construction in poverty-stricken counties, cities, and districts, and in particularly impoverished areas.