China remains world’s largest online retail market

China’s online retail sales in 2023 recorded a year-on-year increase of 11 percent to reach 15.42 trillion yuan ($2.17 trillion) – maintaining its position as the world’s largest online retail market for 11 consecutive years, as the country’s efforts to promote high-quality development of the e-commerce sector showed positive results, China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said in a statement on Friday.

The steadily progressing digital economy contributed significantly to China’s consumption in 2023, which is poised to further spur consumption in the coming year, experts said, highlighting the culture and tourism industry as a major sector sharing the dividends.

Amid China’s rapid development in the digital economy, the e-commerce sector has injected more vitality into retail spending. Online retail sales of physical goods accounted for 27.6 percent of the country’s total retail volume in 2023, setting a new record, official data showed.

The MOFCOM statement outlined multiple new consumption trends in the service sector in 2023, including online tourism, entertainment, and catering. The three sectors together contributed 23.5 percent to the growth of the total online retail sales last year while driving up the sector’s growth by 2.6 percentage points.

In addition to the direct e-commerce sales that have shored up economic growth, the continued integration of online and offline resources has also helped stimulate consumption, Zhang Yi, CEO of iiMedia Research Institute, told the Global Times on Friday.

In 2024, the consumer market will continue recovering following a rise in market activity from the release of consumers’ savings and a further optimized consumption structure led by new products and models, Pan Helin, joint director of the Research Center for Digital Economics and Financial Innovation, affiliated with Zhejiang University’s International Business School, told the Global Times on Friday.

Pan expected a better performance for the digital economy and e-commerce sectors in the coming year.