China's Ministry of Commerce

China's Ministry of Commerce (商务部, MOFCOM) functions as the central state organ governing domestic and foreign trade, foreign investment, and international economic cooperation, and it has become one of the principal policy actors shaping the commercial deployment of digital humans (数字人) in China. Through its Department of Electronic Commerce and Informatization (电子商务和信息化司), led by Director Zhu Yong (朱咏), MOFCOM issues regular e-commerce updates that have systematically tracked the diffusion of digital human livestreaming, with adoption among monitored merchants reaching roughly 20 to 30 percent by mid-2024 and AI-assisted multilingual digital human broadcasting cited as a defining feature of platform innovation. Its Department of Service Trade and Commercial Services (服务贸易和商贸服务业司), under Director Kong Dejun (孔德军), integrates digital humans into the China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS, 服贸会), the 2025 edition of which featured a dedicated Beijing Plan Promotion Officer digital human alongside the release of the China Service Trade Development Report. MOFCOM co-hosts the Global Digital Trade Expo (GDTE, 全球数字贸易博览会) in Hangzhou with the Zhejiang provincial government, an event that has staged the country's first Digital Human Intelligent Debate Competition (数字人智辩大赛) and uses digital humans and naked-eye 3D technology to anchor on-site interaction. The ministry's regulatory and promotional reach extends through joint instruments with other agencies, including the June 2024 nine-department Opinions on Expanding Cross-Border E-Commerce Exports and Building Overseas Warehouses, which explicitly endorses digital humans as a permitted new technology for export livestreaming, the September 2025 eight-department Guiding Opinions on Vigorously Developing Digital Consumption, and the December 2025 eight-department AI+Manufacturing implementation opinions covering digital human customer service and three-dimensional product modelling. MOFCOM also operates the China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair, 广交会), which launched its first official virtual digital human at the 136th session in October 2024, oversees the Time-honored Brand (中华老字号) program that incorporates AI digital human storytelling for heritage brand promotion, and deployed a dedicated AI digital human supporting Chinese, English, and ASEAN languages at the 22nd China-ASEAN Expo and China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit in 2025 under Vice Minister Yan Dong (鄢东). Through subordinate platforms such as the China Service Trade Guide Network (tradeinservices.mofcom.gov.cn) and the China Foreign Trade Enterprise Service Network (12335.mofcom.gov.cn), the ministry disseminates research and case material on virtual digital human regulation, intellectual property disputes including the first virtual digital human copyright infringement judgment, and industry standards, positioning itself as the trade-facing complement to the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in the country's broader digital human governance architecture.