The Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOC) published its long-awaited guidelines for e-commerce third-party payment service providers in a bid to regulate a rapidly developing business-to-consumer (B2C) industry that processes about six times as many transactions as world retail giant Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
The 16-page publication aims to create a “fair, honest and safe” transaction platform for the country’s online retailers and shoppers, Jiang Zengwei, vice minister of commerce, told a forum on China’s e-commerce industry that opened on Tuesday in Beijing.
China has the world’s highest number of Internet users, with about 457 million netizens, among whom 148 million were active online shoppers as of the end of last year. China’s B2C transactions topped 4 trillion yuan in 2010, compared to Wal-Mart’s total revenue.
