Organized by the committee of "shopping online for Guangzhou retail products" and undertaken by southcn.com, the opening ceremony of the second "Guangzhou e-commerce companies' tour of national web journalists" was held Monday at Guangdong Hotel, Guangzhou city.

Qi Zhenli, vice secretary of Communist Party of Guangdong Province's Commission of Economy and Information Technology, Ouyang Nongyue, vice chief-editor of Nanfang Daily Media Group and over 20 website journalists from both central and provincial portals joined this year's ceremony.

A staff member of vipshop.com introduces her firm's official website page to journalists in front of two touch screens on Dec 23, 2013 in Guangzhou. [Liu Zheng/ chinadaily.com.cn]

"Shopping online for Guangzhou retail products" was first guided by the Commission of Economy and Information Technology of Guangdong province in the end of 2012. It aims to encourage the profits of e-commerce firms, helping the transformation process of traditional retail enterprises and stimulating the consumption of e-commerce consumers.

Supports come from central and local governments

In order to increase the support on Guangdong's e-commerce development, in 2013, a new opinion aims to accelerate the development of e-commerce has been conducted by the local government of Guangzhou. As Guangdong's first official opinion for e-commerce development, it has achieved some breakthroughs in the e-commerce policies and regulations.

In terms of initial financing, not only the special fund from Guangdong government but also the fund of provincial strategic new emerging industry, special fund of Internet services industry and special fund for small- and medium- enterprises have been developed.

Meanwhile, tax preferences and financial support have been first mentioned in the opinion. On Sept 24, the General Administration of Customs of China approved Guangzhou's proposals for new services in three areas, which include general exports delivered overseas by mail or fast delivery B2C, bonded exports B2B to consumer, and general exports B2B. The approval also means Guangzhou has become a State-level pilot city for cross-border e-commerce services.

According to Qi, this year's online promotion for Guangdong retail products has continued its development from last year. He indicated that an e-commerce discussion forum was organized during the press conference of this year's activity; second, an exhibition called "shopping online for Guangzhou retail products" has been held during the 2013 China International Small- and Medium- Enterprises Fair; third, the promotion method for the activity has been changed from a brand creating section to a brand building section; fourth, upgraded the official website, official micro-blog and WeChat's official account of the activity to enhance the communication ability with online shopping customers; fifth, encourage different kinds of market entities to join activities; sixth, holding lectures and training about e-commerce industry; seventh, holding sales promotion activities; eighth, holding this year's Guangdong International E-commerce conference, and lastly, one is to edit and produce medium and long term e-commerce development proposals.

As of November, the trading volume of e-commerce in Guangzhou this year had reached 1.75 trillion yuan ($288.2 billion), up 25 percent year-on-year. Online sales have reached 320 billion yuan with a year-on-year increase of 33 percent.

The second "Guangzhou e-commerce companies' tour for national web journalists" will be carried though one week, ending on Dec 27. During the five day event, the journalists will visit nine e-commerce companies based in Guangdong, such as vipshop.com, Moonbasa and INMAN.

Staff members of Moonbasa take photos for a model on Dec 23, 2013 in Guangzhou. [Liu Zheng/chinadaily.com.cn]