Thanks to the policy boost, sharing economy platforms had attracted investment of more than 100 billion yuan (14.5 billion U.S. dollars) in China to date. 

The sector will grow at an annual rate of around 40 percent over next few years, and will contribute more than 10 percent to China's GDP by 2020, according to a report on the development of China's sharing economy jointly released by the Sharing Economy Research Center under the State Information Center and Sharing Economy Working Committee of Internet Society of China. 

About five to 10 powerful sharing economy platforms can be expected over the next decade, the report notes. 

China's sharing economy market generated a trading volume of 3.452 trillion yuan (501.1 billion U.S. dollars) last year, up 103 percent year over year. 

Of those, the transaction volume in key areas like life services, production capacity, transportation, housing, and healthcare sharing, soared 96 percent year over year to 1.366 trillion yuan (198.3 billion U.S. dollars), while that in the capital sharing area surged 110 percent to 2.086 trillion (302.8 billion U.S. dollars). 

A total of 600 million people were involved in the industry in the year, an increase of 100 million people over the previous year. 

When discussing the regulation of the sector, Tian Hongqi, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that a credit information sharing mechanism and credit rating system should be established.

Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn