E-commerce turnover on the mainland surged 60 per cent in the first six months of the year to 2.25 trillion yuan (HK$2.58 trillion), a sign the internet is set to play an increasingly important role in the world's third-biggest economy.
Annual e-commerce turnover in 2010 will exceed 4.38 trillion yuan, according to a report from the China e-Business Research Centre. That is equal to almost 13 per cent of the country's gross domestic product in 2009.
The report covers so-called business to business (B2B), business to consumer (B2C) and consumer to consumer (C2C) transactions on the mainland. B2B transactions comprise the bulk of the on-line deals, with turnover of 2.05 trillion yuan in the first half, while that of B2C and C2C totalled 200 billion yuan.
Cao Fei, a researcher at Analysys International, said turnover in the e-commerce industry came to about 3 trillion yuan last year and had increased in the first half of 2010 by roughly 60 per cent year on year.
Zhang Zhouping, an analyst at the China e-Business Research Centre and co-author of the report, said e-commerce was a fast growing industry and the upward trend would continue over the next few years.
The number of e-business websites in the country will boom this year, according to monitoring by the research centre. By June, there were 20,700 e-business websites, and it estimated that would climb to more than 23,000 by the end of the year and e-business operating income would exceed 20 billion yuan.
With more global business being done through the internet, many traditional enterprises have started doing deals via websites over the past two years.