China to top online retail in 2013

BEIJING - China will become the world's largest online retail market in 2013, following years of fast growth, a Ministry of Commerce (MOC) official forecast on Tuesday.

China recorded 194 million online shoppers and 782.56 billion yuan ($123.72 billion) in online retail trade by the end of last year, said Li Jinqi, director of the information technology department of the MOC, during a conference on e-commerce held in Beijing.

The volume marked a 53.7 percent rise year on year and constituted 4.32 percent of China's total consumer goods retail volume in 2011, according to Li.

"E-commerce has brought a change in the marketing mode, and online retail is becoming a new growth engine," Li noted.

According to a MOC report also released on Tuesday, China's E-business trade was worth 5.88 trillion yuan in 2011, up 29.2 percent from 2010 and constituting about 12.5 percent of China's gross domestic product last year.

The report said over 40 percent of China's small and medium-sized enterprises have used e-commerce to maintain rapid growth amid a worsening external environment.