Six departments released the “16 Measures” to promote the high-quality development of e-commerce, better serve the real economy, help small and medium-sized enterprises transform, deepen rural e-commerce, develop industrial e-commerce, and support eligible companies to raise funds through listings both domestically and internationally.

Securities Times reporter Qin Yanling

On April 6, six departments including the Ministry of Commerce issued the “Guiding Opinions on Better Serving the Real Economy and Promoting High-Quality Development of E-Commerce,” putting forward 16 measures from consolidating and strengthening the foundation of the real economy, helping achieve a higher level of dynamic balance between supply and demand, and jointly building and sharing China’s e-commerce large market, to advance the development of a framework system for high-quality e-commerce.

In recent years, e-commerce in China has grown rapidly. According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, China has become the world’s largest online retail market for 13 consecutive years, covering 26 million merchants in China and serving 3.2 billion consumers worldwide.

“E-commerce is rooted in the real economy and grows with it. It is both an important part of the real economy and a key lever for empowering the real economy. Better serving the real economy is the original aspiration and inherent requirement for the high-quality development of e-commerce.” said the person in charge of the e-commerce department of the Ministry of Commerce.

The “Guiding Opinions” first proposes measures to help small and medium-sized enterprises transform, deepen rural e-commerce, and cultivate industry e-commerce, focusing on empowering them to improve efficiency and consolidate and strengthen the foundation of the real economy.

In-depth empowerment through industry e-commerce is a main characteristic of e-commerce development in recent years. According to monitoring of big data by the Ministry of Commerce, as can be seen only from the first two months of this year, online retail sales of agricultural products increased by 17.6%. The transaction volumes of industry e-commerce in key monitored categories—metals and industrial goods—grew by 63.8% and 8.8%, respectively.

The “Guiding Opinions” proposes to cultivate industry e-commerce. Specific measures include carrying out the “Industry E-Commerce Helps Enterprises—Docking” campaign, guiding e-commerce enterprises to leverage their strengths to carry out digital transformation in areas such as R&D and manufacturing, warehousing and logistics, and sales services, thereby promoting efficient coordination across the production-supply and supply-to-sales chain; encouraging all localities to build e-commerce-featured industrial clusters based on their resource endowments and regional advantages; and supporting eligible regions to strengthen the development of global collection and distribution and warehousing and distribution systems and to expand international markets, among other efforts.

The person in charge of the e-commerce department of the Ministry of Commerce noted that in 2025, 36 “Silk Road e-commerce” partner countries are spread across all five continents globally. Cross-border e-commerce imports and exports account for more than 6% of the share of goods imports and exports, and opening-up and cooperation continue to deepen.

Advancing high-level opening-up and promoting inclusive development is also a key deployment in the “Guiding Opinions.” The “Guiding Opinions” proposes four measures: promoting cross-border e-commerce, expanding “Silk Road e-commerce,” accelerating institutional-based opening-up, and promoting alignment and connection of rules, so as to jointly build and share China’s e-commerce large market.

Among them, regarding the development of cross-border e-commerce, the “Guiding Opinions” clearly states that it is necessary to develop modes such as “market procurement + cross-border e-commerce” and “China-Europe freight trains + cross-border e-commerce.” It calls for vigorously supporting overseas warehouses for cross-border e-commerce, improving overseas intelligent logistics platforms, innovating the development of digital trade, and supporting e-commerce enterprises in expanding exports of high-quality digital services. It also encourages e-commerce enterprises to build direct-purchase bases overseas, expand imports of high-quality featured products, and create a global “direct lane” for bringing great goods into China’s market.

In terms of creating a favorable ecosystem, the “Guiding Opinions” proposes that efforts should be made to implement platform responsibilities, guiding e-commerce platforms to standardize and optimize the charging practices toward operators operating on the platforms, and encouraging e-commerce platforms to reasonably reduce or waive fees for newly settled small and micro enterprises and individual businesses and vendors. It also proposes to promote e-commerce platforms to establish and improve a mechanism for filing appeals, remedies, and relief in cases where the rights and interests of small and medium-sized merchants are harmed.

For livestream e-commerce and other areas with relatively fast growth, the “Guiding Opinions” specifies that it is necessary to strengthen the standardized management of online livestream marketing activities and study and formulate compliance development guidelines for livestream e-commerce. It also calls for improving mechanisms for qualification verification of products sold online, as well as supervision, sampling and inspections, and penalties for product quality issues; and increasing the proportion of product sampling and inspections for products sold online. In addition, it calls for strengthening regulatory law enforcement and operator-focused review of monopolistic agreements in the e-commerce sector, conduct of abusing market dominance, and the concentration of undertakings, and for investigating, disposing of, and regulating typical problems according to law, rectifying “involution-style” competition, and maintaining a fair and orderly market competition environment.

At the level of financial supply, the “Guiding Opinions” proposes that it is necessary to give full play to the role of industrial investment funds and science-and-technology innovation mother funds. On the premise of compliance with laws and regulations and controllable risk, it is encouraged that financial institutions, in line with the financing needs of e-commerce enterprises, improve diversified financial service models. By using comprehensive means such as loans, equity, and others, it will provide full-chain, full-lifecycle, diversified, and handoff-based financial services to support innovation in e-commerce business model. It also encourages cooperation between financial institutions and e-commerce enterprises to innovate credit products and services. It supports eligible e-commerce enterprises in issuing bond financing, optimizing financing-related policy procedures, and supports eligible e-commerce enterprises in raising financing through listings both within and outside China.