The head of the E-commerce Department at the Ministry of Commerce recently presented an overview of China's e-commerce development for the January-September 2026 period.
During the first nine months of 2026, the driving forces behind China's e-commerce sector continued to innovate, online retail underpinned consumption growth, and international cooperation deepened steadily, helping to strengthen the resilience and vitality of the nation's economic development.
Development momentum has become more innovation-oriented. The "Five Excellences" initiative for quality e-commerce was rolled out, guiding the e-commerce industry to shift from scale expansion toward quality improvement. E-commerce platforms accelerated independent research and development in cloud services, large models, and computing power chips. The performance levels of large models, monthly active users, and token call volumes rose to the front ranks globally, making the sector an important new force in China's artificial intelligence development. E-commerce digital-intelligent empowerment is benefiting agriculture, industry, and services.
From January to September, according to Ministry of Commerce big data monitoring, online retail sales of agricultural products in China grew by 12.6%, while online retail sales in the Tianjin carpet and Jiangxi porcelain industrial belts rose 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 pronounced. According to National Bureau of Statistics data, national online retail sales of goods and services grew by 4.4% in the January-September period. 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 share of retail sales of goods achieved through the internet by units above the designated size was 31.8%, up 3.9 percentage points from the same period last year. Online retail sales of services grew rapidly. 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 deepened further. The fifth Global Digital Trade Expo was held, attracting 2,008 enterprises to exhibit and more than 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 circles from over 30 countries and international organizations engaging in in-depth exchanges on policy, industry, and capacity building, building consensus on e-commerce development. Offline training sessions of the e-commerce seminar for developing countries and ASEAN trained participants from 18 countries, while the Africa special session of the Cloud Lecture Hall attracted participation from 22 African countries. Cross-border e-commerce maintained relatively rapid growth. According to preliminary estimates by the General Administration of Customs, China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports grew by 4.4% in the January-September period.
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