简体中文
As one of China’s fastest growing sectors, the massive e-commerce sector is expanding its reach to rural areas, transforming the local economy and the rural way of life. At the same time, rural e-commerce is becoming a rich soil for entrepreneurship and a new battleground for the country's e-retail giants.
Liang Kai is a young and entrepreneurial farmer in Helan, a small county in China’s northwestern Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. He is one of the earliest entrepreneurs to test the waters on e-commerce, selling local specialty farm produce on online platforms.
With support from the local government to foster rural entrepreneurship, hundreds of similar small local companies work together to train personnel and create unified packaging, delivery, and after-sales systems.
At the same time, some Internet service companies are making a foray into the rural market, trying to make a splash by serving a long underserved area.
Cuncunle, an online platform that connects locals in 640,000 villages, employs a network of local administrators who are educated and influential in their communities. They pair companies with local labor and consumers, and help farmers sell their produce on Cuncunle's platform.
The platform leverages its local networks to help companies connect with hard-to-reach consumers in the countryside. Cuncunle has made its way to Harvard Business School's EMBA curriculum as a case study for rural empowerment.
China is stepping up its effort to boost development in less-developed rural areas, and propping up rural e-commerce has become a key strategy to achieve this ambition.
The country has set a target of 800 billion yuan, or around 120 billion US dollars, in rural e-commerce by 2020.
(CGTN)
