E-Commerce 13FYP Focuses on Capturing Industry Opportunities

Recently, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)released the 13th Five Year Plan on E-Commerce describing the full deployment arrangements during the 13th FYP Period (2016-20), including key objectives, 5 major tasks, and 17 initiatives covering 4 main areas. By 2020, the E-commerce transaction volume is expected to double the volume see during the 12th FYP period, exceeding RMB 40 trillion, online retail sales will reach RMB 10 trillion, and more than 50 million people will be working in E-commerce related-fields.

Major tasks include accelerating E-commerce quality improvement, promoting in-depth integration of E-commerce into traditional industries, developing E-commerce key markets, improving E-commerce civil service system, and optimizing the E-commerce market environment.

The plan also maps out 17 initiatives covering infrastructure, new market models, key markets, and market order for E-commerce. Some details from the initiatives:

E-commerce Infrastructure:

  • Construct comprehensive E-commerce platform, optimize the government affair information system, speed up the interlinkage of government affair information systems and the sharing of public data. 
  • Encourage the use of big data, crowdsourcing, Blockchain and other technology in E-commerce application. 


E-commerce new market models:

  • Support the integration of the manufacturing industry with E-commerce, achieve the healthy and rapid development of social E-commerce, and boost rural economics through E-commerce. 
  • Promote the development of cross-border E-commerce through setting up experimental zones
  • Develop cross-border E-commerce policies, governance and data standards.
  • Encourage local organizations and business to proactively participate in the formulation of international e-commerce regulation, standards, and systems. Further enhance cross-border E-commerce supply chain corporation, including technology, logistics, and business model.


E-commerce key markets:

  • Support the use of technologies to innovate transaction scenarios, such as the use of virtual reality, automatic identification and other technologies to create immersive shopping experiences. 
  • Support the use of technologies to improve operating efficiency, such as the use of big data, cloud computing, networking, Beidou navigation, artificial intelligence and other technologies to improve data processing and analysis capabilities to capture consumers’ personalized needs.


E-commerce market order:

  • Implement the Cyber Security Law, push forward the promulgation of the E-commerce Law and the amendment to the Patent Law,  Copyright Law, Anti-unfair Competition Law and other laws, accelerate the legislation process of E-commerce regulation, and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of E-commerce enterprises, consumers and stakeholders. 
  • Develop the mechanism of cross-authority, cross-regional and cross-border law enforcement, in combination of online and offline governance, crack down on counterfeit and IPR infringements. 
  • E-commerce enterprises should follow the relevant national cyber security standards, plan and develop E-commerce cyber security safeguarding system, data security management system and cyber security emergency response and disaster recovery system. 
  • Promote the establishment of E-commerce cyber security certification, testing and risk assessment services system, and enhance the assessment and regulation of data security in cross-border online transaction. 
  • Strengthen the protection of users’ privacy and rights, and crack down on online crimes and illegal activities. 


To access the complete plan in Chinese, please visit the State Council website.