Online stores are keeping busy at night in Yiwu, Zhejiang province. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Villages in Yiwu, Zhejiang province are making a name for themselves by promoting and selling products through e-commerce and livestreams.

According to the Department of Commerce of Zhejiang province, the city is home to 169 e-commerce villages where work revolves primarily around e-commerce websites and social networking platforms.

From January to October, Yiwu's e-commerce trade volume was valued at 246.48 billion yuan, up 13.39 percent year on year. By the end of October, the city had registered over 223,700 market entities engaged in the burgeoning industry.

The Yiwu Bonded Logistics Center is cooperating with cross-border e-commerce platforms such as T-mall Global and NetEase Kaola and plans to begin offering customers better discounts.

Yiwu Customs is optimizing supervision and implementing 24/7 customs clearance services. Priority is being given to orders and other urgent matters that require manual review. Special groups are even being sent to work overtime to process packages.

The government is also expanding 5G network to rural areas. Local authorities said that in 2021, 5G network will connect both rural and urban areas, relying on over 3,000 5G base stations.

This support has helped the e-commerce industry grow rapidly in rural areas. The municipal commerce bureau said that, to date, the city has over 49,000 e-commerce companies registered in villages and around 330 stores on e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD.