A sharing economy is a phrase included in the communiqu?? of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee. It refers to a peer-to-peer social economic system built around the sharing of human and physical resources. It includes the shared creation, production, distribution, trade and consumption of goods and services by different people and organizations, and offers benefits to all parties involved.

The core value of a sharing economy, in the words of Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, is "access not ownership".

Information technology, especially the Internet, enables a sharing economy to provide individuals and organizations with necessary information that leads to the optimization of resources.

Nowadays a sharing economy is becoming popular in many countries, because it is more environmentally friendly and helps improve the efficiency and harmony of a society.

Car and home rental services are the pioneers of a sharing economy in China, but now the new economic model is being applied to many fields, especially in the service industry.

The communiqu?? proposes developing the sharing economy over the next five years, which has raised building up a sharing economy to a national strategy. It is expected that the sharing economy will give new impetus to China's economic transition.

(China Daily 11/12/2015 page8)