Hebei province has plans to build more online platforms to promote e-commerce and improve its traditional business methods over the next three years, with provincial commerce department authorities saying that e-commerce transactions are expected to amount to 750 billion yuan, this year, with online shopping accounting for 70 billion yuan.

By 2015, the end of the 12th Five-year Plan period (2011-2016), those transactions are expected to exceed 1.2 trillion yuan and account for to 6 percent of China's overall business in that area. Online shopping is also expected to have sales reaching 120 billion yuan, accounting for 8 percent of total retail sales.

The province will develop 10 e-commerce trading platforms for such items as steel, coal, iron ore, textiles, and agricultural products to standardize transactions, and improve trade services and provide better services for buyers and suppliers all across the country. There will also be 100 e-commerce platforms serving special industries, whose output values exceed one billion yuan. The government will focus on 30 B2B and B2C platforms in the short term, for glass items in the city of Shahe, for example, to promote the local economy. It will also select 30 enterprises that are doing well in e-commerce to use them as an example for other enterprises, and build 10 provincial demonstration bases for e-commerce.

It is encouraging cooperation with prominent domestic e-commerce companies to increase industry links and promote the development of Hebei's e-commerce.