At the State Council meeting on June 10, Premier Li Keqiang alluded to a recent trend among Chinese people traveling abroad. The fact that many travelers to Japan have been returning with smart toilet seats has not gone unnoticed.

“Consumption is guided by supply. It is not a bad thing that domestic consumers have more options, as this will force our enterprises to transform and upgrade, “ the Premier said, “But why can’t domestic enterprises produce the products that our people are buying overseas?”

The meeting requested that cross-border e-commerce should be developed and the open economy be upgraded.

Premier Li said that cross-border e-commerce should not be regarded as people in China buying overseas commodities - as it is more about import and export of products made by various enterprises.

He also said the development of stores and factories will be driven by “the Internet Plus foreign trade” mode - which will also help increase employment.

During his recent visit to Latin America in May, Premier Li asked his staff to find out about e-commerce in the countries he visited - and he discovered that the sector in those countries is not as developed as in China.

“Chinese websites account for only 5 percent of the total number of e-commerce sites, but we are very creative in this sector,” the Premier said, “So why not have a try and see if we can truly develop and activate the cross-border e-commerce?”