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By Yin Lei

Chinese companies’ online purchases of goods and services will amount to 360 billion yuan (55.2 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018 and reach one trillion yuan (145 billion U.S. dollars) by 2020, said a report unveiled on Tuesday.

This report, jointly released by the China Center for Information Industry Development and the China International Electronic Commerce Center, forecasts an 80-percent year-on-year increase in online procurement by Chinese companies in 2018.

Their purchases of general consumer goods and services at e-commerce platforms are expected to rise by 62 percent in 2018, a pace much faster than retail products, to 150 billion yuan (21.75 billion U.S. dollars).

Doubled growth will be seen in seven sectors that have spent heavily at e-commerce platforms, with a 432 percent surge to be registered by academic and scientific research entities, 208 percent by transport and logistics businesses, 124 percent by financial and securities firms and 122 percent by aeronautics and aerospace institutions.

Among the top 20 items measured by year-on-year growth in online sales to companies, five are services, including online education, mobile phone services, tourism and vacation, packaging and vocational training.

Maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) procurement is on track to stage explosive growth in 2018 thanks to the efforts of e-commerce giants like JD.com and Suning.com to offer industrial goods. Of the above 20 items, most are MRO items.

Private businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises are the major contributors to this robust landscape, respectively making up 70 percent and 86.3 percent of Chinese companies buying online.

Aside from functioning as sales platforms serving domestic buyers, China’s e-commerce companies are also buying actively abroad. In early November, just two days after the first China International Import Expo (CIIE) kicked off in Shanghai, Chinese e-commerce companies had already signed import contracts worth over 1.6 trillion yuan (232 billion U.S. dollars).