Report on the 2015 Summer-Autumn Agricultural Products Online Purchase and Sales Matchmaking Fair

In order to accelerate the development of agricultural products e-commerce, the Ministry of Commerce held the 2015 Summer-Autumn Agricultural Products Online Purchase and Sales Matchmaking Fair from August 18 to September 18, 2015. With the close cooperation and careful organization of commerce departments at all levels and the distance education offices of the organization departments of Party committees, commerce departments of 335 counties (cities and districts) in 28 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) reported 436,000 pieces of supply and demand information on agricultural products, involving 768 varieties of agricultural products, facilitating the sale of 470,000 tons of agricultural products, with a transaction value of 3.68 billion yuan. Among them, the regions with relatively prominent information release and transaction volumes are: Hunan, Henan, Chongqing, Yunnan, Jiangxi, Hebei, Shandong, Guangxi, Jiangsu, and Ningxia. The relevant situation is reported as follows:

I. Attaching great importance and making comprehensive arrangements

According to the Ministry of Commerce's "Internet Plus Circulation" Action Plan, in order to solidly carry out rural business information services and promote the normalized matchmaking of online purchase and sales of agricultural products, the Ministry of Commerce issued on August 10, 2015 the "Notice of the General Office of the Ministry of Commerce on Doing a Good Job in the 2015 Summer-Autumn Agricultural Products Online Purchase and Sales Matchmaking Fair" (Shang Ban Dian Han [2015] No. 605). Commerce departments at all levels and the distance education offices of the organization departments of Party committees attached great importance to it, unified their thinking, and made comprehensive work arrangements in light of local favorable conditions.

Commerce departments of provinces such as Henan, Hebei, Guangxi, Jiangsu, and Ningxia promptly communicated and cooperated with local agricultural departments, studied and formulated feasible work plans, and took multiple measures simultaneously to ensure that all work of the matchmaking fair was implemented. Commerce departments of provinces such as Hunan, Chongqing, Fujian, and Shanxi actively carried out publicity for the matchmaking fair, formulated work assessment measures, clarified the division of responsibilities, and guided and urged the cities and counties under their jurisdiction to carry out training in a timely manner, guiding more agricultural-related businesses to participate in the matchmaking independently and expanding the coverage of rural business information services. The distance education office of the organization department of the Anyang Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Commerce Bureau of Henan Province set up a supervision group, put forward the work requirements of "attaching great importance, assigning dedicated personnel, vigorously publicizing, and broadly mobilizing," and formed a responsibility system of "cities and counties handling guidance, townships handling management, and stations handling implementation," building a rural business information service network covering the four levels of city, county, township, and village, and achieving good work results in this matchmaking fair.

II. Innovating methods and expanding functions

First, displaying by product type in zones. This matchmaking fair was divided into seven special zones: procurement, presale, melons and fruits, vegetables, livestock, grain and oil, and general. Each zone respectively highlighted information on seasonal spot goods, presales, procurement, and specialty agricultural products, and highlighted products in hot demand for the season, enhancing the visibility and brand value of regional agricultural products. During this period, in order to further assist local government departments in publicizing and promoting high-quality regional specialty agricultural products, promotional special topics were carried out, such as Yunnan plateau specialty agricultural products, Hebei Chongli specialty agricultural products, and the National (Guigang) Summer-Autumn Agricultural Products O2O Matchmaking Fair.

Second, inviting e-commerce procurement enterprises for online interaction. Relying on the procurement hall of the national platform, the homepage of the matchmaking fair special topic highlighted the procurement needs for agricultural products from chain supermarkets, wholesale markets, and e-commerce enterprises, and invited the heads of procurement enterprises to interact online with suppliers, answering at any time the relevant questions of farmers in the process of agricultural product procurement. The Laoshu Yuan Fruit Professional Cooperative of Dangshan County, Anhui Province, through the procurement zone, successfully matched 100 tons of Dangshan crisp pears with Beijing Benlai Life Network, and the two parties also reached a long-term cooperation agreement.

Third, adding a new presale zone for agricultural products. This matchmaking fair added a new presale zone for agricultural products, conducting advance publicity and reservations for agricultural products about to be listed, alleviating the sales pressure brought by the concentrated listing of agricultural products. During the matchmaking fair, more than 30,000 pieces of presale information on agricultural products were released nationwide, which not only effectively increased the channels and windows for information dissemination, but also seized the favorable opportunity of relying on the Internet to carry out agricultural product matchmaking under the new situation.

III. Taking multiple measures and focusing on practical results

Commerce departments and the distance education offices of the organization departments of Party committees in various places closely combined with local realities, firmly seized the favorable opportunity of the matchmaking fair, strengthened leadership, and organized rigorously to ensure that all work was implemented.

The Hunan Provincial Department of Commerce allocated 2 million from the special fund for e-commerce to be used for rural business information services, and allocated it to each pilot county before the matchmaking fair, urging each pilot county to effectively use the funds to carry out various matchmaking tasks. The Guangxi Provincial Department of Commerce, through the SMS platform of the provincial department of commerce, directly sent 1,386 pieces of matchmaking fair information to 769 large agricultural households, expanding the influence of the matchmaking fair among farmers and directly mobilizing a large number of large planting and breeding households to participate in the matchmaking fair. Longyang District, Baoshan City, Yunnan Province, through organic combination with the distance education service system of the organization department, took townships as units, selected 93 villages as pilot villages for rural business information services in the whole district, and adopted the model of "township organization staff + college student village officials + specialty industry villages" to carry out information collection and matchmaking. During the matchmaking fair, it facilitated 27 kinds of local specialty agricultural products, including coffee, tomatoes, walnuts, eggplants, Gastrodia elata, Dendrobium, and sweet persimmons, to be sold far away to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Sichuan, and other places. In addition, provinces (autonomous regions) such as Liaoning, Shanxi, Fujian, Jiangxi, Heilongjiang, and Guangdong also did a great deal of work during the matchmaking fair and achieved obvious results.

Although this matchmaking fair achieved remarkable results, there are still some problems: commerce departments in some provinces and cities did not attach enough importance to carrying out rural business information services and lacked overall planning, resulting in the agricultural products online purchase and sales matchmaking fair not being actually carried out locally; some provinces and cities did not find the ways and methods to carry out this work, resulting in slow progress of the matchmaking fair and failure to achieve the expected results; in addition, some provinces and cities still failed to report the summary of the matchmaking fair in a timely manner.

The rural business information service carried out relying on the Party member distance education network has played a positive role in promoting the circulation of agricultural products, alleviating the "difficulty in selling" agricultural products, and cultivating the rural e-commerce market, and has achieved the goal of "Party members and cadres receiving education and the masses obtaining benefits." In the next step, the Ministry of Commerce will fully implement the spirit of the documents of the Party Central Committee and the State Council on promoting the rapid development of agricultural products e-commerce, further guide and urge local commerce departments at all levels to raise awareness, unify thinking, promptly develop typical examples, summarize advanced experience, continuously innovate work ideas, and take rural business information services as an important task oriented toward serving farmers and promoting the circulation of agricultural products; actively apply big data to promote the integration of information in the procurement, wholesale, and retail links of agricultural products; increase cooperation with agricultural associations and agricultural-related e-commerce enterprises, realize normalized matchmaking of online purchase and sales of agricultural products, and make more contributions to accelerating the development of rural e-commerce.

Department of E-Commerce and Informatization, Ministry of Commerce
November 30, 2015