Govt support bolsters online exports

China's online retail exports will maintain a strong growth momentum this year thanks in large part to the supportive government policies and the accelerated transformation of export enterprises, eBay Inc said Tuesday.

According to the global e--commerce platform's report on the 2014 deve-lopment trend of China's retail export industry, Chinese e-commerce sellers will see enormous opportunities in both emerging and developed markets this year with rapidly increased product categories, as the country's online retail exports have entered a new era of high growth.

The total trade volume on eBay's marketplace stood at $212 billion last year, John Lin, vice president of eBay, told a press conference held in Shanghai.

Lin declined to provide detailed figures for the China market, citing disclosure regulations of the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The year of 2013 saw sales volume of Chinese sellers via eBay "a very strong double-digit growth," which is expected to continue this year due to the preferential policies, increasing penetration of online shopping, continuous technological development and transformation in the traditional export industry, said Lin.

Moreover, there is a diversification of the retail exporters in China, Lin said. While online platforms like eBay have created great opportunities for individual sellers and small and medium-sized enterprises, more and more traditional exporters with capital and industry experience are turning their eyes to e-commerce trade, which could be used to promote their business transformation as well as upgrade.

"Against the backdrop of the sluggish global markets as well as the grim export situation, we expect e-commerce retail exports to become a new growth point for foreign trade, which will not only lower the threshold for exporters to do their business, but also offer a cost--efficient platform to get access to global customers," Zong Wei, director--general of the Shanghai Cross-border E-commerce Association, told the Global Times Tuesday.

As such, the central government has paid great attention to the development of the e-commerce export sector in recent years. In August 2012, the Ministry of Commerce announced a raft of measures aimed at boosting e-commerce retail exports and selected Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Zhengzhou and Ningbo as pilot cities for cross-border e-commerce trade.

"As a result, e-commerce exports in Shanghai grew at an average annual pace of about 40 percent over the years since 2008," Gu Jiahe, deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, said at the press conference.