The central government spends 2 billion yuan on rural e-commerce.

In 2015, the central government will allocate 2 billion yuan of special funds to support the development of rural e-commerce in the central and western regions, especially in the old revolutionary base areas. The use of funds will focus on the construction of a three-level logistics distribution system at the county, township and village levels. This is the latest news obtained by reporters at the National Rural E-Commerce Site Conference held in Suichang, Zhejiang Province from 13 to 14.

Wu Xiangyun, director of the Department of Commerce and Trade of the Ministry of Finance, said in his speech on the 14th that in order to promote the improvement of rural e-commerce level and let e-commerce benefit more rural residents in the central and western regions, especially rural residents in the old revolutionary areas, the Ministry of Finance will selectively support 200 counties in the central and western provinces and the old revolutionary areas to carry out comprehensive demonstration of rural e-commerce, allocating 10 million yuan to each county, and will support the demonstration counties meeting the assessment requirements for another year in 2016. According to her disclosure, compared with 2014, the number of pilot counties this year has increased by 144, and the financial support has increased by 80%. It is hoped that through the guidance and encouragement of financial funds, more enterprises and social capital will be driven into the development of rural e-commerce and the ecological environment of rural e-commerce will be cultivated.

It is reported that the special funds will be standardized in the following three aspects: one is to establish a perfect county, township, village three-level logistics distribution system; Second, it is used to support the construction and transformation of county-level e-commerce public service centers and village-level e-commerce service stations, the brand cultivation and quality assurance system construction of agricultural products and rural characteristic products aimed at developing rural e-commerce, as well as the standardization, graded packaging, primary processing and distribution of agricultural products and other facilities; Third, it is used to support rural e-commerce training. The first item is the focus of special funds.

In addition, Wu Xiangyun particularly stressed that the central financial funds should not be used for the construction of network platforms, as well as the purchase of traffic and other expenditures. If there is any violation, the comprehensive demonstration county qualification will be cancelled and the financial funds will be recovered. She said she hoped that the demonstration county would make use of the existing commercial e-commerce platform to maximize the use of social resources and avoid duplication of construction and waste of resources.

In this regard, Yang Qian, president of Beijing Business Management Cadre College, pointed out that the development of e-commerce in many places is not all a matter of capital, but a matter of concept. The development of rural e-commerce does not lie entirely in the lack of money in local finance and the lack of local market, but in the lack of attention paid by local governments to private capital. If e-commerce develops in backward and poor areas through some supportive policies, the central and eastern regions will also see the possibility of such local support. Therefore, an important change in financial support this year is that it is especially inclined to poor counties, central and western regions and old revolutionary base areas. Such demonstration and driving will be stronger. This is also why the two ministries have made adjustments this year to select pilot projects only for the central and western regions.

It is also worth noting that this year's special funds to support rural e-commerce have specifically standardized the scope of use and resolutely restricted projects, while last year there was no clear requirement in this regard.

Yang Qian said that if funds cannot be used for platform construction, not only will they not produce benefits, but they will also cause political and business confusion. In addition, the purchase flow is purely a subsidy for commercial benefits, contrary to the meaning of government financial subsidies. Government subsidies are appropriate to solve the last kilometer of logistics problems, to solve public problems such as facility construction problems, training problems.

The Ministry of Finance also specifically requested to avoid duplication of construction and waste of resources. In this regard, Yang Qian said, At present many departments and systems support e-commerce, There has been a problem of multiple applications for an object, Get subsidies from multiple departments is equivalent to reducing the leverage of financial funds. The responsibility for avoiding waste of resources lies with the county government, which should consider the use of various financial funds as a whole.