China unveils comprehensive action plan to advance modern commercial circulation system

The Chinese government on Tuesday publicized an action plan to improve the modern commercial circulation system and promote the high-quality development of wholesale and retail industries, in an effort to promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas and rejuvenate the nation's rural regions.

The overall goal of the action plan is to establish a modern commercial circulation system by 2027 that is interconnected, efficient, and seamless, linking urban and rural areas and aligning production with sales.

The plan outlines four key tasks to achieve the objective, including developing a tiered urban commercial layout, enhancing the logistics distribution system at the county, township, and village levels, and achieving cold chain circulation rates of 25 percent for fruits and vegetables and 45 percent for meat.

It also focuses on accelerating the transformation of wholesale and retail industries by nurturing 100 key agricultural wholesale markets and promoting the rapid growth of new formats such as brand chains, instant retail, and live e-commerce, while continuously strengthening distribution organization capabilities.

Additionally, the plan emphasizes elevating levels of digitalization, standardization, and environmental sustainability by creating digital supply chain service platforms, increasing pallet standardization rates to around 40 percent, and enhancing the recycling system for renewable resources.

Furthermore, it aims to advance domestic and international integration by fostering the development of globally competitive enterprises in the distribution sector and accelerating the integration of domestic and international trade.

"This action plan is driven by supply chains and focuses on the high-quality development of wholesale and retail sectors. It fully reflects our requirements for new quality productive forces and high-quality development, emphasizing five key principles: innovation-driven growth, efficiency improvement, structural optimization, green development, and international cooperation. These principles are integrated throughout the entire action plan," said Chen Jin, chief professor of the Modern Service Industry Research Center of the University of International Business and Economics.

Specifically, the action plan proposes to cultivate 500 leading commercial counties across the nation, renovate 5,000 township marketplaces (including trade centers and markets) and establish approximately 50,000 convenient rural stores.

Additionally, the plan seeks to develop a number of county-based live e-commerce hubs and nurture leading digital circulation enterprises within rural areas, so as to ensure that each administrative village has at least one comprehensive logistics service station and that the proportion of joint distribution in counties exceeds 30 percent. Furthermore, the plan aims to foster 100 key agricultural product wholesale markets and also sets a target for online retail sales of agricultural products to surpass 700 billion yuan.

Experts emphasize the importance of enhancing rural commerce as part of the broader economic development strategy. They highlight that addressing these weaknesses is crucial for achieving a more balanced and efficient commercial circulation system across urban and rural areas.

"In the modern commercial circulation system, the distribution of agricultural products and rural commerce have always been a weak link. Therefore, the action plan emphasizes filling the gaps in rural commercial circulation and further improving the agricultural supply chain," said Li Ziwen, deputy director of the institute of industrial economics and technological economics under the National Development and Reform Commission.

"As China's economic development has now shifted to a stage of high-quality growth, the gap between the urban and rural commercial circulation systems is rapidly narrowing. This action plan focuses on building the rural commercial logistics system to better achieve coordinated urban-rural development," said Yi Shaohua, director of the Market Circulation and Consumption Research Office at the National Academy of Economic Strategy under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

China unveils comprehensive action plan to advance modern commercial circulation system

The agreement between the U.S. and China to mutually reduce additional tariffs has encouraged Brazil to defend its sovereignty and negotiate for reasonable tariffs, said Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during his recent state visit to China.

Following a two-day high-level meeting on economic and trade affairs in Geneva, China and the United States announced Monday a series of tariff modification measures aimed at easing trade tensions between the world's two largest economies.

During a press conference on Wednesday in Beijing, Lula voiced his appreciation of the U.S.-China tariff cut, and vowed to pursue reasonable tariffs with the U.S. through negotiation and other means.

"Since the 1980s, globalization has been a keyword, and so is free trade. Suddenly some people believe they have the authority to impose taxes on everyone and everything without consent as if they control the world. However, the reality is that the world is not obligated to accept such actions," said Lula.

"Recently, we've seen a positive shift. The U.S. and China have reached an agreement, resulting in lighter taxes than before. This demonstrates the importance of defending our sovereignty. Brazilian officials know that we hope to negotiate with the U.S., and I urged them to utilize every term in our vocabulary related to 'negotiation'. But if we cannot reach an agreement, we will take reciprocal measures or appeal to the WTO to advocate for our rights. In this way, we will help create a more balanced world and ensure fairer trade among all nations," he said.

Lula paid a state visit to China on May 10-14 at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Brazil encouraged by US-China tariff cut to seek fair tariff negotiations: president