In early 2015, the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development of China classified e-commerce poverty alleviation as one of the Ten Major Projects for Targeted Poverty Alleviation. This marked the first time the Chinese government proposed the e-commerce poverty alleviation project. According to government documents, the policy logic of e-commerce poverty alleviation includes: first, promoting the connection between production and sales in impoverished areas; second, improving the circulation of goods through e-commerce in rural areas; and third, enhancing the digital development level of rural areas.
From the initial policy documents, the focus of e-commerce poverty alleviation support was on impoverished counties, with a focus on the connection between production and sales of agricultural and sideline products. In August 2015, China's Ministry of Commerce and 18 other departments jointly issued opinions, proposing pilot e-commerce poverty alleviation projects in impoverished counties, focusing on supporting impoverished villages and households identified for targeted assistance, and promoting the sales of special agricultural and sideline products and tourism products from impoverished areas.
In early November 2015, the State Council of China issued guiding opinions, identifying rural e-commerce as an important carrier for targeted poverty alleviation. It specifically proposed focusing on impoverished villages identified for targeted assistance to enhance the ability of impoverished households to use e-commerce for entrepreneurship and income increase. It encouraged and guided e-commerce companies to open online sales platforms for special agricultural products from impoverished areas, establishing direct procurement and supply relationships with cooperatives and large-scale farming and breeding households.
At the end of November 2015, the State Council proposed supporting e-commerce companies to expand their rural business, strengthen the construction of online sales platforms for agricultural products in impoverished areas, and enhance the training of e-commerce talent in rural areas. It supported providing network fee subsidies and small loans for impoverished families to open online stores. It also supported the postal system and supply and marketing cooperatives to establish service outlets in impoverished villages, improving the level of rural internet financial services in poverty-stricken areas.
In January 2016, the Ministry of Agriculture clarified that it would conduct pilots in the areas of fresh agricultural products, agricultural production materials, and leisure agriculture, with one of the main goals being to drive poverty alleviation in impoverished areas.
In December 2016, the State Council proposed implementing the e-commerce poverty alleviation project through means such as equipment and logistics subsidies, broadband network discounts, cold chain construction, and training support. In January 2019, the guidance from the State Council encouraged large e-commerce enterprises to set up poverty alleviation specialty stores, e-commerce poverty alleviation pavilions, and poverty alleviation channels for impoverished areas, providing support such as traffic.
Summarizing the journey of the e-commerce poverty alleviation project, at the national level, e-commerce poverty alleviation was first used as an important tool for the fight against poverty. E-commerce overcame the geographical limitations encountered by traditional rural products in moving up the value chain, promoting the connection between production and sales of agricultural products in impoverished areas. Moreover, the government has increasingly recognized the role of new internet-based business models, represented by e-commerce, in public services such as education and healthcare in rural areas. E-commerce poverty alleviation will shift from primarily focusing on commodity circulation services to more comprehensively covering Internet + social and public services. Secondly, e-commerce poverty alleviation is an important part of the Internet + initiative. The "Internet +" initiative has already achieved world-renowned success in urban areas. Empowering rural populations, especially the impoverished, through e-commerce is equally important. How to share the industrial dividends and conveniences brought by Internet + with the rural impoverished population is the main direction of e-commerce poverty alleviation policies. Finally, e-commerce poverty alleviation is also part of the modernization of agriculture and rural areas. A key content of e-commerce poverty alleviation is to extend information infrastructure to vast rural areas, which helps to lay the foundation and application of modern information technology in vast rural areas, thereby providing prerequisites for e-commerce storage of agricultural products, agricultural IoT construction, and Internet + rural public services.
