ONLINE shopping is thriving in rural China, with last year’s transactions nearly double the amount in 2014, a Ministry of Commerce official said.

    Online purchases in rural areas were up 96 percent year on year to 353 billion yuan (US$55 billion) in 2015, said assistant minister of commerce Wang Bingnan, at a briefing in Beijing on Friday.

    China now has more than 3,000 commercial websites specifically targeting rural areas, Wang told reporters at the briefing, but acknowledged that a lack of properly trained people, poor competitiveness, an incomplete marketplace and weak infrastructure were hindering the expansion of online shopping.

    The ministry hopes to improve the logistics network and train more people.

    Despite an economic slowdown in the country, online retail sales in China remained strong, jumping 33.3 percent year on year to 3.88 trillion yuan in 2015.

    (Xinhua)