采访视频链接：http://english.cntv.cn/2015/06/13/VIDE1434143163691878.shtml
Q：The State Council has announced a series of policies to support migrant workers to return to their rural hometowns to start new business. What are the highlights of these policies compared with the former ones, and what kind of impact will it bring on the local economy development? A：The highlights are tailored-made packages, never seen before, specifically for enterpreneurship by migrant workers in the rural areas. They include tax breaks, business loan subsidies, and easier registration procedures for eBusinesses. They also offer equal access to public services such as social insurance, housing, education and health care. A new experiment of collective bonds will also be offered to alleviate credit problems. About the impact. Alibaba, JD, and Suning are having huge moves in the rural areas. These moves will affect two groups of villages quite differently. Accordingly to Alibaba, there is a group of about 200 villages called Taobao villages, defined as villages having 10% of households actively operating Taobao stores with the village total online revenue of over RMB 10 mil. This is the group that has largely solved the downstream problem, ie, buying from eBusinesses and has been working hard on the upstream problem, ie, selling things online. The other group includes the villages that have not solved the downstream problem because the last mile to their homes deep inside the mountains is so costly to access. These villagers are so illiterate to computers that Taobao has started to offer proxy buyers for them near their villages. This latter group would immensely benefit from the migrant workers coming home; just so many village kids working in the cities who are so perfectly competent in mobile apps using their very cheap phones. I also see a potential for these remote villages to leapfrog by using unmanned aerial vehicles to deliver packages. It's a great example of late mover advantage. Look, earthquake hit Wenchuan badly in 2008 but now Wenchuan has some of the most sophisticated health IT systems. For the former group of Taobao villages that are already doing quite well online, what they need are funds and goodwill. They are most sensitive to fund policies of loans, p2p finance, and subsidies. They also desperate need to build their trust making customers believe that the fruit they sell is not tainted with pesticides and honey not diluted. While bottom-up quality certification should be encouraged, top-down legal enforcement of problematic sellers should also be strengthened. |
