ORANGE CARPET: Workers wax naval oranges in a processing plant in Zigui County, central China's Hubei Province. Zigui is expected to harvest more than 330,000 tons this winter, creating a major income source for migrants from the Three Gorges area (ZHENG JIAYU)

Rural Market Valued

China's leading e-commerce giants have stepped up expansion of online retail business in rural areas in hopes of tapping the new territory to offset a saturated urban market.

JD.com Inc., a Nasdaq-listed firm, announced on December 18 it would set up a county-level operating center in south China's Guangdong Province.

The move followed the e-commerce decision to open a physical shop in a small county in north China's Hebei Province in November to help farmers purchase home appliances via its online shopping store.

Plagued by poor transport and less purchasing power, rural buyers have remained mostly untouched by the wave of online shopping that swept across China in recent years.

However, the situation is changing as the burgeoning market in villages has shown great potential and intrigued the country's major e-commerce businesses.

A report published by a research center under Alibaba Group, China's largest commerce company, forecast the value of the rural online sales market will grow to 180 billion yuan ($29.4 billion) this year and 460 billion yuan ($73.89 billion) in 2016.

Rural buyers on Taobao.com, Alibaba's online sales website, made up nearly 10 percent of total sales of the site in the first quarter of this year, up from a proportion slightly higher than 7 percent two years ago.

More Airports in Xinjiang

China vowed on December 20 to make more efforts to support the development of civil aviation in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said in a guideline that it will improve aviation infrastructure in Xinjiang by supporting the expansion of established airports and construction of new ones.

The CAAC will speed up preliminary study of a new airport in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang. It also backed the city to apply for a 72-hour visa-free entry for international transit passengers.

In addition, the administration encouraged airlines to operate more routes connecting Xinjiang cities with China's eastern areas as well as foreign countries.

Xinjiang currently has 16 civil airports, with 46 domestic and foreign airlines operating 184 routes. It has the most airports and longest airways among China's provincial-level regions.

From January to November, Xinjiang saw 238,000 civil flights and throughput of over 20 million passengers and 163,000 tons of cargo and mail, up 20.5 percent, 9.8 percent and 8.8 percent year on year, respectively.

Disneyland's New Rival

Chinese real estate tycoon Wang Jianlin said on December 20 that his Dalian Wanda Group plans to compete with Disneyland and will probably open theme parks in the United States in the future.

Wang, founder and President of Dalian Wanda, revealed his ambition at the opening ceremony of a movie park in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province.

Although real estate comprised the bulk of Wanda's revenue, Wang said that the group is seeking more growth engines as rapid expansion in China's property sector comes to an end.

Wang said Wanda will unveil a transformation plan in January and turn to businesses in culture, tourism, finance and e-commerce for further growth.

In a move toward the transformation, Wanda launched the "cultural tourism city" program to construct building complexes for tourism, entertainment, shopping, dining and other purposes in a number of Chinese cities.