BEIJING, May 8 -- Rural e-commerce development will be a top focus this year, as China aims to foster a new growth pillar in the countryside, the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) said on Friday.

E-commerce not only provides rural residents much easier access to products, but has also become an important channel for the sale of produce, the MOA said in a statement on its website.

Booming e-commerce is conducive to higher rural consumption and also attracts entrepreneurial talent to rural areas, according to the MOA.

The MOA vowed to build a unified, orderly rural e-commerce market and efforts will be made to strengthen resource sharing, financing and credit system services.

Rural online transactions reached over 100 billion yuan (16 billion U.S. dollars) in 2014 and they are expected to hit 460 billion yuan by 2016.

The MOA statement echoed a guideline issued on Thursday by the State Council, China's cabinet, which pledged to develop e-commerce.