China eyes world's e-commerce crown

China has revealed ambitious growth plans to lead the world in e-commerce, quadrupling Web sales to reach 18 trillion yuan by 2015, but laid out a strict new set of policy measures to get there, The Register reports.

A lengthy memorandum sent from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology outlines the country's 12th 'five-year plan' for e-commerce, which, bizarrely, began last year and runs to 2015.

It claims that quadrupling e-commerce sales in the period from a total of 4.5 trillion yuan at the end of 2010 is eminently doable given the rapidly developing mobile Internet, cross-border trade, the SME sector and the online payments industry, which raked in 1.01 trillion yuan in 2010.

China, with 513 million Internet users, is home to more residents who are online than the US, according to a China Internet Network Information Centre report in January, China Daily writes.

“During the 11th Five-Year Plan (2005 to 2010), the growth rate for China's e-commerce sales increased by an average of 250%, reaching 4.5 trillion yuan by the end of 2010,” the ministry said.

In 2010, about 161 million Internet users purchased 513.1 billion yuan in goods online, an amount making up 3.3% of the value of all retail sales in China.

The ministry says it plans to reach its goal in e-commerce by pushing companies to move their businesses online, Investors.com states.

It will foster the development of third-party payment systems and encourage supermarkets and wholesalers to create online stores and develop product-tracking systems.

The Internet regulator also says it will back legislation to aid the sector and promote the use of e-tickets on China's huge public transport system.