China's e-commerce sector posts robust growth in first two months

China's e-commerce sector demonstrated sound growth momentum in the first two months of 2025, the Ministry of Commerce said Friday.

Artificial intelligence and the country's consumer goods trade-in program have contributed to steady growth of the sales of online goods, with humanoid robots and other embodied intelligent products emerging as new highlights in digital consumption, according to the ministry.

Official data showed that China's online retail sales of physical goods rose 5 percent year on year during the Jan.-Feb. period, outpacing the 4 percent growth of retail sales of consumer goods.

Boosted by policy incentives such as the expansion of visa-free entry policies, online services also registered rapid growth in this period, with sales of online tourist services surging by 35.9 percent compared with a year earlier, the ministry revealed.

The data also showed that under the Silk Road e-commerce cooperation framework, sales of passion fruit from Colombia and wine from Serbia on key platforms had soared by 355.5 percent and 215.8 percent from a year earlier, respectively. ■