E-commerce becomes the golden axe for rural prosperity
Premier Li Keqiang of the State Council attended the opening ceremony of the China Big Data Industry Summit and the China E-commerce Innovation and Development Summit in Guiyang on the 25th and delivered a speech. Li Keqiang pointed out that we must vigorously strengthen the construction of information infrastructure, especially accelerate the pace of infrastructure construction in rural areas and in old revolutionary base areas, areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, border areas and impoverished areas, narrow the "digital divide," and promote employment expansion and poverty reduction.
After rapid development in recent years, China's e-commerce has grown into a towering tree and is still growing at a high speed. According to relevant data, in 2015 China's online retail transaction volume was 3.88 trillion yuan, up 33.3% year on year, of which online retail sales of physical goods were 3.24 trillion yuan, up 31.6% year on year, accounting for 10.8% of total retail sales of consumer goods. It can be seen that e-commerce's contribution to economic development is growing larger and larger. China's e-commerce development still has a prominent urban-rural dual structure problem, namely that central cities are large in scale and highly developed, while the vast rural areas remain at a relatively low level of primary development. It can be foreseen that as large e-commerce enterprises such as Alibaba, JD.com, Suning and Amazon make major moves into the rural e-commerce market, China's rural e-commerce will enter an explosive period. While bringing farmers affordable goods of good quality, it will also better promote rural products to the world. It can not only help rural economic development but also help farmers share the dividends of e-commerce development.
Effectively helping farmers improve their quality of life
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, by the end of 2015, the total population of the Chinese mainland was 1,374.62 million, of which the rural population was 603.46 million, accounting for 43.90% of the total population; the total retail sales of consumer goods for the year were 30,093.1 billion yuan, up 10.7% over the previous year, or 10.6% in real terms after deducting price factors, of which rural consumer goods retail sales were 4,193.2 billion yuan, up 11.8%. From the above data, it can be seen that, on the one hand, China still has more than 600 million rural residents, and the e-commerce penetration rate among this group is still relatively low, indicating relatively large room for growth and potential; on the other hand, China is in a new era of consumption upgrading, and because the rural base is relatively low, its consumption growth rate will be faster than that of towns and cities.
For a long time, due to incomplete, imperfect and non-standardized commodity circulation channels, fake goods and shoddy goods have flooded the rural market, making it difficult for the vast rural areas to enjoy goods of good quality and low price. I still remember that a few years ago, when I went back to my hometown in the countryside for the Spring Festival, whenever I went to the market to buy goods, I often saw products such as "Rejoice" in a large 5-yuan bottle. With the development of rural e-commerce, this phenomenon is becoming less and less common. On the one hand, this certainly shows that farmers' quality awareness is increasing; on the other hand, it also shows that the vigorous development of rural e-commerce has smoothed the circulation channels for rural goods.
Strongly boosting rural economic development
Rural e-commerce is not only about urban goods going to the countryside, but more importantly about rural products being sold to cities and even to the whole world. The Internet effectively connects global markets, turning the vast earth into a "global village." For rural areas, rural e-commerce is an important manifestation of the rural Internet. Rural e-commerce enables agricultural products to directly connect with users thousands of miles away and also to directly connect with overseas markets, helping rural areas and farmers get on the fast train of economic globalization and ride the wind and waves against the backdrop of the era of economic integration. At present, what we can see everywhere is that **grapes and jujubes from rural areas in certain places have entered the kitchens of urban residents in Shanghai and even the United States through e-commerce, while at rural tourism attractions in the central and western regions, people from all over the world can be seen.
Rural e-commerce can help rural areas build industrial chains with strong clustering effects. Rural development and prosperity cannot be separated from the development of large-scale industries, and e-commerce is helping farmers in some areas build corresponding industrial systems. Taobao villages based on Taobao.com are playing such a role. By the end of 2015, there were 780 Taobao villages nationwide that met the standards, covering more than 200,000 active online stores. These Taobao villages are distributed across 17 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, among which Zhejiang, Guangdong and Jiangsu ranked in the top three nationwide in the number of Taobao villages. These villages connect with both domestic and international markets, promote the formation of local industrial clusters, and thereby form relatively complete industrial chains.
Rural e-commerce boosts the rise of an entrepreneurial trend in rural areas. One important reason for rural backwardness is that the risks of innovation and entrepreneurship are high and awareness is weak, and the key is that the cost of market development is too high and the risks are too great. The development of e-commerce can effectively open up markets and reduce market risks. This has also led some young people who came out of rural areas to work in cities to return to the countryside to start businesses after acquiring capabilities, experience, knowledge and capital accumulation. Of course, rural e-commerce also plays an important role in improving rural infrastructure and other aspects.
In summary, rural e-commerce is opening a window to a new world for rural areas, and is also forging a golden axe of prosperity for creative farmers of the new era!