China sees over 70 million domestic trade market entities in 2018

BEIJING - China's domestic trade market entities surpassed 70 million by the end of 2018, up 10 percent year-on-year, official data showed.

They accounted for 68 percent of the total market entities last year, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) told a press release Thursday.

Domestic trade includes the wholesale and retail industry, accommodation and catering industry and resident services in China.

Newly added market entities for domestic trade in 2018 came in at 14.12 million, equivalent to 39,000 per day on average, MOC spokesperson Gao Feng said.

Domestic trade value added stood at 11.7 trillion yuan ($1.75 trillion) in 2018, contributing around 13 percent to gross domestic product, with the proportion second only to manufacturing.

More than one-fourth of employers in China worked in domestic trade in 2018, with an increase of 8.5 percent year-on-year to over 200 million, Gao said.

Thursday's data also showed taxes paid by wholesale and retail industry, and accommodation and catering industry climbed 11.9 percent year-on-year to 2.4 trillion yuan, 2.8 percentage points faster than growth of total tax revenue.