The State Council on April 15 issued a guideline for implementation of the Internet Plus Circulation action plan, which urges promoting the transformation and innovative development of circulation, along with measures to advance e-commerce development in rural areas.

The guideline called on promoting the transformation and upgrading of circulation by utilizing information technology relating to the Internet, Internet of Things and Big Data to achieve online-offline interactions in marketing, payments and after-sales services.

In addition, it urged strengthening supply-chain management, developing chain operations and related purchasing to achieve cost saving and productivity improvement, and enhancing the ability to reach circulation upgrades with the aid of information, networking and intellectual technology.

The guideline also called for making use of the Internet to innovate production techniques and business mode, to spread Chinese brands and carry forward Chinese traditional culture.

Related departments are urged to make efforts to promote an innovation-driven business mode via the Internet, in order to optimize market structure, improve productivity and stimulate consumption.

The guideline then encourages developing a new mode of the sharing economy by drawing on the successes of other countries, encouraging enterprises to optimize distribution of social resources via the Internet, and exploring new space and fields for products and service consumption.

Meanwhile, it stressed strengthening supportive policies for the construction of logistics bases and cold chain system, accelerating the construction of cold chain transportation and cold storage in key agriculture regions, expanding investments in the construction of rural broadband to eliminate the urban-rural digital gap, promoting the construction of a smart logistics distribution system, and advancing the coordinated development between e-commerce and logistics.

Moreover, related departments are urged to expand intellectual consumption fields, actively developing new technologies on artificial intelligence such as virtual and augmented reality, greatly promoting intellectual products such as wearable devices and service robots, with matching services.

The guideline also called on promoting green products, and controlling heavy energy-consuming, heavy-polluting, excessively packaged products from entering the circulation and consumption circles.

It then urged guiding e-commerce enterprises to establish multiple types of coordinated operation modes with management bodies for new-type agriculture, wholesale market for agricultural products, and chain supermarkets, expanding the channels for agricultural products to enter cities and encouraging e-commerce enterprises to expand into the rural consumption market.

The guideline required developing e-commerce in communities, encouraged developing software for shopping services within communities, and strengthening the integration of e-commerce enterprises with commercial sites at communities, carrying out services such as picking up packages and logistics distribution.

It also encouraged setting up a development fund for Internet Plus Circulation, guiding social and overseas capital to expand investment in the application of information technology in circulation and the Internet.

In addition, the guideline called on beefing up public services to bolster an orderly operation of the e-commerce market, and improving the standards system for rules of circulation, to create an environment with credit operation and fair competition.