Graphics: E-commerce to stimulate economic vitality in China

China's month-long 618 shopping spree ended on Wednesday. The country's express delivery firms handled 3.59 billion parcels in the first week of the 618 shopping festival, with rapid growth backed by the large user size of online shopping and payment applications, and the country's robust consumption market.

As of December 2023, the user base for online shopping in China had reached 915 million, up 69.67 million from December 2022, accounting for 83.8 percent of all Internet users, according to a new report released by the China Internet Network Information Center. The number of online payment users reached 954 million, maintaining a growth trend for ten consecutive years.

The mid-year spending boom mirrors a steady recovery in China's online retail consumer goods sales. According to the Ministry of Commerce, China's online retail sales saw steady expansion in the first four months of 2024, with an increase of 11.5 percent year-on-year to 4.41 trillion yuan (about $620.52 billion).  

The market size of China's strong e-commerce industry has also laid a solid foundation for the country's cross-border e-commerce trade. China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports reached 2.38 trillion yuan in 2023, up 15.6 percent year-on-year, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.

The rapid development of cross-border e-commerce exports has helped Chinese products reach global markets and injected new momentum into international trade. China has more than 100,000 cross-border e-commerce entities and over 200,000 independent cross-border e-commerce sites.

As of 2023, China had over 1,800 overseas warehouses, and Chinese banks could provide full-chain and full-cycle services for domestic cross-border e-commerce operators.