China unveiled new rules on online transactions

The Chinese State Administration for Marketing Regulation (SAMR) has introduced new oversight and management regulations of online transactions, effective 1 May 2021. The new regulation tightens the rules by bringing in social commerce under the e-commerce law regulation, forcing any entity that sells via social platforms to comply by registering their businesses, obtaining appropriate selling licenses and subjecting them to tax.

According to Reuters, SAMR will also ‘accelerate the construction of a system that will collect the online transaction information in real time allowing for better monitoring and coordination’.