China adopts guidelines to support the sharing economy

China’s State Council has adopted a set of guidelines to boost the development of the sharing economy. The guidelines are aimed at ‘creating an enabling environment for sustained innovation’, by allowing easier access on the sharing economy market, enhancing policy transparency, and ensuring a better protection of the rights of both consumers and service providers. With regard to regulations for the sharing economy, China’s Premier Li Keqiang is of the opinion that they ‘should be tolerant while prudent, as there is still much yet to be learned about new business models. We should avoid simply applying traditional methodology on the sharing economy’.