SHANGHAI: China's cross-border ecommerce transactions are expected to increase more than ten-fold to reach $245bn by 2020, according to a new forecast.

Meanwhile, global cross-border ecommerce transactions are expected to rise to $994bn over the same period, up from $230bn in 2014, with China driving much of the growth.

These are some of the key findings in a report from global consulting firm Accenture and AliResearch, the research division of Chinese ecommerce giant, Alibaba.

Their Cross-Border B2C E-Commerce Market Trends study estimates that global online shopping will witness 27.4% compound annual growth over the next five years.

There will be more than 900m online shoppers around the world by 2020, the report said, and online purchases will account for almost 30% of all global B2C transactions.

Chinese consumers are expected to account for 200m of all online shoppers in the world by 2020 with growth fuelled by a growing Chinese middle class, who demand authentic, high quality foreign goods. There is also the untapped spending potential of rural consumers to take into account.

China's middle class is already about the same size as the entire population of the US and it is expected to grow to 630m people by 2020, the report said.

With increasing numbers going online to buy foreign goods, the report also revealed the opportunities awaiting foreign brands by highlighting Chinese concerns about product safety and stating that they are already searching for goods labelled "Made in America".

This latest estimate of China's online potential came as Chinese premier Li Keqiang chaired a State Council executive meeting to discuss how to boost the development of cross-border ecommerce, Xinhua reported.

In a statement following the meeting, the State Council executive said China will optimise custom clearance processes, allow tax reductions and exemptions, while also encouraging cross-border electronic payments.

Data sourced from Alizila, Alibaba, Xinhua; additional content by Warc staff