E-commerce is now center of the global information economy.

In the 1990s, the world economy only saw an average growth rate of around 3 percent, while information technology and its related sectors enjoyed 10 to 15 percent growth. The influence of the information sector has penetrated deeper into overall economic and social development.

As a basic facility of the information economy, the Internet has fascinating sound development, and this has triggered a new race to develop e-commerce as the core of the new economic competition. Many countries, especially developed ones, have made great efforts to shift from an industrialization economy to an information economy.

"The information economy is taking off and greatly boosting production and consumption on a global scale. It is a new industry enjoying the highest growth rate, biggest potential and highest compatibility with the old economic sectors. Its fast development has brought deep change to the global economic development pattern." Lu said.

E-commerce is an important part of information industrial development.

The information industry has become a pillar industry in China’s national economy. During the past five years, the output value of the information sector accounted for 10 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), with a growth rate higher than overall GDP growth, Lu Xinkui stressed.

Enterprises are cells of the market entity and their development in information technology is the first step toward the IT-driven national development, he said.

"At present, the priority should be given to the development of e-commerce, which is becoming the chief means to upgrade China’s traditional industries," the vice minister stressed.

He pointed out that e-commerce must be combined with traditional sectors to provide value-added services.

"First of all, the traditional enterprises, especially small and medium-size ones, should engage in e-commerce with minimum investment to cover a wide-range customers. Second, the ordinary consumers can use various electronic information terminals to enjoy services provided through e-commerce. A rational, consumer-oriented e-commerce operation mode suits China should be established, to make e-commerce a new growth point in national economic development " Lu stated.

E-commerce needs a unified standard.

"There must be a comprehensive planning for e-commerce to ensure sharing of information resources and a unified standard to promote IT-driven industrialization. China's e-commerce requires a technical standard for e-commerce information exchange in line with international criteria and an e-commerce platform sharing information in accordance with China's basic situation." Lu said.

He concluded: “An e-commerce development strategy should include several principles which are highly-developed application technology, market mechanism, commonly established network, commonly shared resources, technical innovation, fair competition and an open market".

(china.org.cn 04/28/2001)