National supply and marketing cooperative e-commerce platform expected to officially launch in the second half of the year

At a press conference recently held by the State Council Information Office, Li Chunsheng, deputy secretary of the Party Leadership Group and deputy director of the Board of Directors of the All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives, said that the federation will focus on building a national e-commerce platform, with provincial-level cooperatives coordinating the development of regional and specialized e-commerce platforms, which will ultimately connect to the national platform to form a scale advantage and create an “online supply and marketing cooperative.” At present, construction of this platform has already started, and the aim is to have it up and running in the third quarter of this year.

Li Chunsheng said that the recently published “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Deepening the Comprehensive Reform of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives” has brought the development of supply and marketing cooperatives to a new historical starting point. Supply and marketing cooperatives will better serve “agriculture, rural areas and farmers,” and truly achieve “bearing the surname of agriculture, serving agriculture and working for agriculture.” What dividends will the comprehensive reform of supply and marketing cooperatives bring to farmers?

⟦NL> Li Chunsheng said, “For a long time, supply and marketing cooperatives have been providing guarantees for farmers in plant protection, soil testing and formulated fertilization, and pre-production agricultural input supply, and will continue to do this work well in the future. At the same time, supply and marketing cooperatives will build a comprehensive post-production service platform so that farmers can truly enjoy convenient and diversified services. In addition, we must strengthen the construction of the ‘New Network Project,’ and solve the problems of ‘difficulty in buying’ and ‘difficulty in selling’ agricultural products through methods such as contract ordering and online sales, so that farmers can gain tangible benefits.”

With the rapid development of the e-commerce industry, well-known e-commerce enterprises have one after another “gone to the countryside,” bringing new challenges to supply and marketing cooperatives. Zou Tianjing, deputy director of the Board of Directors of the All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives, said that there is both competition and more room for cooperation between the supply and marketing cooperative system and these enterprises. While focusing on establishing e-commerce platforms, supply and marketing cooperatives will also encourage and support supply and marketing cooperatives at all levels to cooperate with these e-commerce enterprises to form a joint force serving agriculture.

“E-commerce is a new business model, and for supply and marketing cooperatives it is also a major opportunity to develop new circulation formats and improve management levels. Therefore, we must give play to the advantages of our physical network and accelerate innovation and transformation to achieve integrated online and offline development.” Zou Tianjing introduced that at the beginning of this year, the federation had already issued a series of supporting plans, including opinions on accelerating the development of e-commerce, and proposed the “four highlights” for future development layout.

He further introduced that, first, highlight the overall advantages of supply and marketing cooperatives, with the federation building a national e-commerce platform and provincial-level cooperatives coordinating the development of regional and specialized e-commerce platforms, which will ultimately connect to the national platform to form a scale advantage; second, highlight the advantage of supply and marketing cooperatives being close to farmers, and give play to the main role of county-level supply and marketing cooperatives in rural e-commerce; third, highlight the advantage of supply and marketing cooperatives having widely distributed physical outlets, accelerate the informatization transformation of grassroots cooperatives below the county level, comprehensive service cooperatives and various business and service outlets, and achieve integrated online and offline development; fourth, highlight the key point of agricultural product circulation, give play to the advantages of market entities such as supply and marketing cooperative agricultural product operating enterprises, industry associations and farmers’ cooperatives, and organize agricultural product resources from all regions to be sold through the supply and marketing cooperatives’ e-commerce platform.

“In addition, we are also actively developing e-commerce models such as B2C, C2C and O2O. At present, the system has more than 800 e-commerce enterprises.” Zou Tianjing said.

In terms of developing rural finance, Li Chunsheng said that over the past ten-plus years, relying on the advantages of its network system, talent reserves and continuously strengthened risk prevention awareness, the supply and marketing cooperative system has developed rapidly in services such as mutual fund assistance, microcredit and credit guarantees. There are already 341 various credit and mutual fund cooperation organizations, and it has also participated in the construction of 20 village and township banks. Some regions basically have the conditions for developing finance. This “Decision” not only allows supply and marketing cooperatives to pilot the establishment of small and medium-sized banks, but also encourages supply and marketing cooperatives to engage in work such as microcredit, financial leasing and credit guarantees. It is believed that in the near future, the first cooperative bank of supply and marketing cooperatives can be established.