Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, in the newly released government work report, urged the country to develop a sharing economy. The move is expected to provide new impetus for China’s economic transformation and upgrading.

“We need to move faster to develop new technologies, industries, and forms of business, boost the development of a sharing economy through institutional innovations, create sharing platforms, and develop emerging industry clusters such as high-tech and modern service industry clusters, so as to bring about strong new engines," Li was quoted as saying last Saturday.

Sharing economy refers to peer-to-peer sharing of access to goods and services. This new business mode, based on resource sharing, can optimize resource allocation and reduce operating cost.

Though originated in the West, sharing economy has boomed in China in recent years. It has penetrated into plenty of segmented markets. Emerging services like online ride-hailing and house-renting are such examples.

Sharing economy platforms have created a market worth 1.95 trillion yuan in 2015, according to figures co-released by the National Information Center and Internet Society of China.

The latest data also predicted that the country’s sharing economy will grow at an annual rate of 40 percent in next five years, and will take up more than 10 percent of China's GDP by 2020.

In addition, with annual growth of over 50 percent in the past two years, there are now more than 500 million sharing business providers in China, the report said.

Last year, sharing economy has been highlighted in many official documents, implying that China’s policymakers have been aware of its potential and willing to support the sector.

Analysts predicted that sharing economy may bring about unprecedentedly wide range of change in the country’s labor market.

Experts also stressed that the country needs to formulate strategic plans to secure innovation and avoid possible problems, so that sharing economy can inject new driving force into China’s economic restructuring and upgrading.