Recently, the General Office of the State Council has issued the Guiding Opinions on Vigorously Promoting the Innovation and Application of the Supply Chain (the "Opinions").
The Opinions set objectives of forming a batch of new technologies and models of the supply chain that fits in with our country's actual situation, basically establishing a smart supply chain system that covers major industries in China, creating around 100 globally leading enterprises specialized in the supply chain, and enabling China to evolve into an important hub in innovation and application of the supply chain in the globe, by the year 2020. To achieve this end, the Opinions lay down six major tasks, including "raising the modernization level of circulation", and propose six safeguards, such as "actively carrying out the pilot demonstration of the innovation and application of the supply chain". In addition, the Opinions call for establishing a reverse logistics system, forming an online transaction market for wastes and renewable resources, implementing the extended producer responsibility system, and encouraging relevant enterprises to extend professional services, such as collaborative research and development, crowdsourcing design, and solutions, to the upstream of the supply chain, and to extend value-added services to the downstream of the supply chain, such as remote diagnosis, warehouse logistics, finance lease, and consumption credit.