A forum on advancing the high-quality development of e-commerce was held in Jiangshan, a county-level city in Quzhou, East China's Zhejiang province on April 13.

More than 300 representatives from Quzhou's e-commerce companies attended the event, which was part of efforts by provincial authorities to help e-commerce operators expand their footprints.

Jiangshan mayor Xu Mingfeng said at the forum that the city has in recent years been implementing a series of measures, including cultivating industry-leading e-commerce enterprises, establishing platforms, and improving supporting facilities, to bolster its e-commerce industry.

The city, which had an online retail revenue of 27.85 billion yuan ($4.05 billion) in 2022, is currently home to 30 e-commerce companies whose annual online retail revenues exceed 10 million yuan.

Jiangshan has also created a new livestreaming model where skilled workers perform as a host at their own workshops. The city has set up more than 50 livestreaming platforms at its workshops and nurtured 200 hosts, who received online orders worth more than 1 billion yuan in 2022.

The model is useful in showcasing the authentic factory environment, building trust between manufacturers and consumers, as well as attracting more customers to its physical stores across the country, said Xia Lei, the operation manager of Zhejiang Yadile Doors Co Ltd.

Authorities will train 500 hosts and establish 200 livestreaming workshops over the next two years to bolster sales of its signature products like wood doors, fire-fighting facilities, honey bee produce, and shuttlecocks.