2024-08-25 16:54:29
BEIJINGChina’s e-commerce sector saw robust growth in the first half of 2024, driving a recovery in consumption in the world’s second-largest economy.
Online retail sales during the period rose 9.8 percent year on year to 7.1 trillion yuan (about 996 billion U.S. dollars), of which sales of goods reached 5.96 trillion yuan, up 8.8 percent, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce on Friday.
The ministry said digital products, service consumption and exchange programs were the three new drivers of consumption growth in the first half of the year.
In terms of digital products, artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning and smart wearable devices grew by 136.6 percent and 31.5 percent, respectively, according to the data.
In terms of service consumption, online travel and catering services surveyed increased by 59.9 and 21.7 percent, respectively.
Chinese e-commerce platforms have coordinated to offer recycling services covering more than 300 categories of goods, as well as exchange services for more than 400,000 products. Thanks to the latter services, sales of refrigerators, washing machines, mobile phones and TVs rose by 82.1 percent, 70.4 percent, 63.9 percent and 54.3 percent respectively on major online shopping platforms.
While e-commerce is driving the recovery of domestic consumption, international cooperation in the sector has also continued to expand. In the first half of this year, China signed memorandums of cooperation on e-commerce with Serbia, Bahrain and Tajikistan, bringing the total number of Silk Road partner countries for the sector to 33, the ministry said.