A live webcast is held during a trade fair for specialty agricultural products in Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning Province, featuring hosts who tap live streaming to deliver a sales pitch. File Photo: cnsphoto

China's sharing economy is expected to rebound anywhere between 10-15 percent in 2021, maintaining an annual growth pace of 10 percent in the following five years, according to China Sharing Economy Development Report (2021), released by the State Information Center.

The transaction volume for China's sharing economy in 2020 was around 3.38 trillion yuan ($522.47 billion), rising 2.9 percent year-on-year, slowed from 2019's 11.6 percent due to COVID-19 pandemic. Although sharing economies in accommodation, working and trips plummeted hugely in 2020, sharing knowledge skills and medical care increase 30.9 percent and 27.8 percent respectively. 

Consumption carried out at home or online boomed due to the epidemic containment measures. Online take-out order income accounted for 16.6 percent in China's catering industry, rising 3.8 percent year-on-year. Live streaming sales embrace massive development in 2020. Chinese short video start-up Kuaishou announced that deals amount reached 109.6 billion yuan ($16.94 billion) in the first half of 2020 on its platform, almost twice of the whole year sales of 2019. 

The report noted that flexible positions offered by the sharing economy are conducive to the stabilization of China's labor market. The size of the sharing economy workforce reached 84 million in 2020, among which 6.31 million were employed by platforms in fields of the sharing economy.

Sharing service and innovative consumption formats are expected to emerge and boost China's sharing economy further with the broader application of 5G, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things.

Global Times