E-commerce in rural areas receives 2 billion yuan in special funding support, 200 counties benefit
Deep mountains and ravines, inconvenient transportation: Longnan is a typical poverty-stricken area. Yet through "e-commerce poverty alleviation," the entire city of Longnan has opened more than 6,000 online stores, and online sales of agricultural products have exceeded 1 billion yuan.
In fact, it is not only Longnan. Survey data from the Alibaba Research Institute shows that among the more than 800 poverty-stricken counties nationwide, more than 20 have already exceeded 100 million yuan in transactions on Taobao. Riding the "Internet Plus" wave, "e-commerce poverty alleviation" has become the "targeted poverty alleviation" prescription offered by many local governments.
Recently, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Commerce announced the list of 200 demonstration counties for the 2015 comprehensive demonstration program of e-commerce entering rural areas. The central government plans to allocate 2 billion yuan in special funds for targeted support. According to a reporter from National Business Daily, Shandong, Gansu, Hebei and many other places have already issued "e-commerce poverty alleviation" documents, aiming to integrate advantageous products from poverty-stricken areas with the market by setting up e-commerce poverty alleviation experimental bases in impoverished villages and adopting methods such as "platform + park + training."
Multiple places set up "e-commerce poverty alleviation" platforms
In Gansu, Longnan, which was the first to launch "e-commerce poverty alleviation," has already set a standard "model." Next, Gansu will advance e-commerce development in 58 poverty-stricken counties, cities and districts and 225 particularly impoverished areas, and plans to enable more than 70% of the province's poverty-stricken townships to sell local specialty products through e-commerce by 2017.
Wang Xiangdong, director of the Informatization Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that e-commerce poverty alleviation means incorporating e-commerce, which has become increasingly mainstream in the Internet era, into the poverty alleviation and development work system, applying it to those being assisted, innovating poverty alleviation and development methods, and improving poverty alleviation and development performance in concept and practice. E-commerce poverty alleviation can be used for one industry, one place, or one matter, and can also be used simultaneously for or radiate to multiple industries, multiple places, and multiple matters.
"Take vegetables as an example. Small-scale farmers often aim to consume what they produce if they cannot sell it, so their income is limited. But after they develop e-commerce, that is, using a mobile phone to go online, with just a tap, they can very simply see the buyer's demand and achieve direct connection between production and sales," a person in charge of operating a vegetable e-commerce platform in Beijing told National Business Daily. "What e-commerce poverty alleviation needs first is for the hardware to be laid out well, and there also needs to be someone to lead the farmers."
In the "Implementation Plan for the Construction of the Zibo National Poverty Alleviation Reform Pilot Zone" recently issued by Zibo, Shandong, "e-commerce poverty alleviation" has also been planned. Next, experimental bases will be set up in some poverty-stricken villages, adopting the "platform + park + training" method, and building an industry system oriented toward e-commerce by establishing e-commerce trading platforms.
In Yi County, Hebei, the hope is to incorporate e-commerce into the "Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development" strategy to achieve targeted poverty alleviation, and a "e-commerce poverty alleviation" strategic cooperation has been reached with Yimutian Group. Wang Yi, vice president of external relations at Yimutian Group, told National Business Daily that Yimutian will carry out informatization training for agricultural industry players, construction of an agricultural product traceability system, big data analysis of agricultural product circulation, and agricultural product trade matching, working together to build a "Beijing-Tianjin green agricultural product production and supply base" integrating large-scale production, standardized quality control, and distinctive brands.
2 billion yuan in funds to support rural e-commerce
Recently, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Commerce announced the list of 200 demonstration counties for the 2015 comprehensive demonstration program of e-commerce entering rural areas. The central government plans to allocate 2 billion yuan in special funds for targeted support to develop local rural e-commerce.
According to the arrangement, the 2 billion yuan in special funds for 2015 will fully support the development of rural e-commerce in the central and western regions, especially in the old revolutionary base areas, and the use of the funds will focus on building a three-tier logistics distribution system at the county, township and village levels. It is hoped that through the guidance and encouragement of fiscal funds, more enterprises and social capital will be brought into rural e-commerce development and a rural e-commerce ecosystem will be cultivated.
Among the newly announced 200 demonstration counties, counties and districts in the central and western regions account for 82.5%, and poverty-stricken counties account for more than 43.5%. Old revolutionary base areas such as southern Jiangxi, eastern Guizhou, Longnan and northern Shaanxi appear on the list in clusters. This is a measure by which fiscal support selects the best to support central and western provinces and old revolutionary base areas. Each pilot county will be allocated 10 million yuan, and demonstration counties that meet assessment requirements will receive another year of support in 2016.
The special funds will be standardized for use in three aspects: first, establishing a complete three-tier logistics distribution system at the county, township and village levels; second, supporting the construction and renovation of county-level e-commerce public service centers and village-level e-commerce service stations; third, supporting rural e-commerce training.
"Poor rural infrastructure and high logistics costs are usually regarded as the main problems restricting rural e-commerce development, but in our research we found that everyone should actually pay more attention to the issue of the effectiveness of e-commerce poverty alleviation training," said Zhou Kequan, director of the Decision Consulting Department of the Gansu Institute of Public Administration. "As an economically underdeveloped province, the scarcity of e-commerce talent is a common phenomenon, and in training, the relevance of training courses should be improved. For example, for training aimed at local government officials, the main purpose is to raise their awareness of e-commerce and e-commerce poverty alleviation."