China unveils comprehensive action plan to advance modern commercial circulation system

The Chinese government on Tuesday publicized an action plan to improve the modern commercial circulation system and promote the high-quality development of wholesale and retail industries, in an effort to promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas and rejuvenate the nation's rural regions.

The overall goal of the action plan is to establish a modern commercial circulation system by 2027 that is interconnected, efficient, and seamless, linking urban and rural areas and aligning production with sales.

The plan outlines four key tasks to achieve the objective, including developing a tiered urban commercial layout, enhancing the logistics distribution system at the county, township, and village levels, and achieving cold chain circulation rates of 25 percent for fruits and vegetables and 45 percent for meat.

It also focuses on accelerating the transformation of wholesale and retail industries by nurturing 100 key agricultural wholesale markets and promoting the rapid growth of new formats such as brand chains, instant retail, and live e-commerce, while continuously strengthening distribution organization capabilities.

Additionally, the plan emphasizes elevating levels of digitalization, standardization, and environmental sustainability by creating digital supply chain service platforms, increasing pallet standardization rates to around 40 percent, and enhancing the recycling system for renewable resources.

Furthermore, it aims to advance domestic and international integration by fostering the development of globally competitive enterprises in the distribution sector and accelerating the integration of domestic and international trade.

"This action plan is driven by supply chains and focuses on the high-quality development of wholesale and retail sectors. It fully reflects our requirements for new quality productive forces and high-quality development, emphasizing five key principles: innovation-driven growth, efficiency improvement, structural optimization, green development, and international cooperation. These principles are integrated throughout the entire action plan," said Chen Jin, chief professor of the Modern Service Industry Research Center of the University of International Business and Economics.

Specifically, the action plan proposes to cultivate 500 leading commercial counties across the nation, renovate 5,000 township marketplaces (including trade centers and markets) and establish approximately 50,000 convenient rural stores.

Additionally, the plan seeks to develop a number of county-based live e-commerce hubs and nurture leading digital circulation enterprises within rural areas, so as to ensure that each administrative village has at least one comprehensive logistics service station and that the proportion of joint distribution in counties exceeds 30 percent. Furthermore, the plan aims to foster 100 key agricultural product wholesale markets and also sets a target for online retail sales of agricultural products to surpass 700 billion yuan.

Experts emphasize the importance of enhancing rural commerce as part of the broader economic development strategy. They highlight that addressing these weaknesses is crucial for achieving a more balanced and efficient commercial circulation system across urban and rural areas.

"In the modern commercial circulation system, the distribution of agricultural products and rural commerce have always been a weak link. Therefore, the action plan emphasizes filling the gaps in rural commercial circulation and further improving the agricultural supply chain," said Li Ziwen, deputy director of the institute of industrial economics and technological economics under the National Development and Reform Commission.

"As China's economic development has now shifted to a stage of high-quality growth, the gap between the urban and rural commercial circulation systems is rapidly narrowing. This action plan focuses on building the rural commercial logistics system to better achieve coordinated urban-rural development," said Yi Shaohua, director of the Market Circulation and Consumption Research Office at the National Academy of Economic Strategy under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

China unveils comprehensive action plan to advance modern commercial circulation system

Neil Bush, founder and chair of the George H.W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations, has hailed the warming of China-U.S. relations and highlighted the enduring resilience of China's economy.

Bush spoke on the sidelines of the 2025 International Symposium on the Peaceful Use of Space Technology – Health (IPSPACE 2025) in Boao, a coastal town in China's island province of Hainan. He pointed to the recent meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump, as a key step toward improving bilateral ties, despite persistent trade tensions.

"I think it's improving. It's reached a kind of an all-time low recently. But the fact that the presidents met and there's been more exchanges, there's been, I think a better understanding established, and you can see signs from Washington that there's an easing of tensions, which I'm very, very happy to see. I still think that there are going to be challenges with our bilateral trade relationship. I'm concerned that our government believes that tariffs are going to help America create jobs and create wealth in America. And I think that's a false thesis for an economic policy. So I'm concerned there may not be much negotiating on the issue of tariffs. Otherwise, the bilateral relationship seems to be warming and improving, which I'm very happy about," said Bush.

Bush also praised China's economic progress and its leading role in shaping an AI-driven future.

"You can never count China out. There have been many, many projections over the past 20 to 30 years of China's demise. 'Experts' predicted that China is going to go down. The reality is China is very resilient, and there's so much activity going on here. We're at an IP space conference. There's a lot of discussion about innovation and finance and capital and all the new technologies that fall out of AI's development. There's a lot going on, not just in China, but clearly China is playing a critical role in building the new economy, the transition economy from kind of the old way to the AI-driven way," said Bush.

Bush also highlighted the benefits that China's economic development has brought to improving people's livelihoods.

"China's resilient. China's economy, hopefully, will continue to grow. I happen to believe that as economies grow, people benefit and the role of government should be to provide benefits to its people. So our American capitalist system has worked in America to make us a very strong country where people are enjoying all kinds of benefits from wealth. China, likewise, the people of China are benefiting from economics. So I applaud the economic development in China, which is helping to improve the life of more and more millions of people," he said.

Bush China Foundation chair hails improvement in China-US ties