According to a message published on the Ministry of Commerce website on October 23, the head of the E-Commerce Department of the Ministry of Commerce introduced China's e-commerce development from January to September 2026, stating that during this period, China's e-commerce sector continued to innovate its growth drivers, online retail supported consumption growth, and international cooperation deepened, helping to strengthen the resilience and vitality of China's economic development.
The momentum for development has become more innovation-driven. A "Five Excellence" initiative for quality e-commerce was implemented to guide the industry in shifting from scale expansion to quality improvement. E-commerce platforms accelerated independent research and development in cloud services, large models, and computing power chips, with large model performance levels, monthly active users, and token usage rising to the top globally, making the sector an important force in China's artificial intelligence development. E-commerce is empowering agriculture, industry, and services through digital and intelligent technologies. From January to September, according to Ministry of Commerce big data monitoring, China's online retail sales of agricultural products grew by 12.6%, while online retail sales in the Tianjin carpet and Jiangxi porcelain industrial belts grew by 26.3% and 25.9% respectively. According to National Bureau of Statistics data, the added value of the information transmission, software, and information technology services sector grew by 10.4%.
Its role in driving consumption has become more robust. According to National Bureau of Statistics data, national online retail sales of goods and services grew by 4.4% from January to September. According to Ministry of Commerce estimates, the contribution rate to the growth of total retail sales of consumer goods and services reached 45.4%. The role of online channels in driving offline activity strengthened. According to National Bureau of Statistics data, the proportion of retail sales of goods by enterprises above designated size realized through the internet reached 31.8%, up 3.9 percentage points from the same period last year. Online service retail sales grew relatively fast. According to Ministry of Commerce big data monitoring, online travel, online life services, and online catering grew by 25.7%, 13.9%, and 12.2% respectively.
International cooperation has become more in-depth. The fifth Global Digital Trade Expo was held, attracting 2,008 companies to exhibit and over 50,000 professional buyers from 163 countries and regions to attend and procure. During the event, a series of "Silk Road E-Commerce Day" activities were held, with more than 600 representatives from government, industry, academia, and research sectors from over 30 countries and international organizations engaging in in-depth exchanges on policy, industry, and capacity building to build consensus on e-commerce development. The e-commerce seminar for developing countries and ASEAN trained students from 18 countries offline, and the Africa session of the Cloud Lecture Hall attracted participation from 22 African countries. Cross-border e-commerce maintained relatively fast growth. According to preliminary estimates by the General Administration of Customs, China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports grew by 4.4% from January to September.
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