BEIJING - More than 2.2 million Chinese are working for the country's rapidly expanding electronic commerce industry as of June, the People's Daily reported Sunday.

A Taobao.com billboard at an auto show in Beijing. The Hangzhou-based website has become the biggest online trading platform in China as well as the most important platform for thousands of online entrepreneurs. [Photo / China Daily]

The e-commerce sector also helped to create more than 16 million jobs in other industrial sectors, the newspaper quoted statistics released by the China Enterprise Evaluation Association and the China Gold & Silver Trade Center.

China's online commerce has experienced rapid growth in recent years, with its total revenue expanding from 25.8 billion yuan($4.2 billion) in 2006 to 780 billion in 2011

In 2012, China's e-commerce industry was worth 8.1 trillion yuan, with online shopping contributing 1.3 trillion yuan, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Commerce.

As of 2012, China had about 200,000 e-commerce service enterprises, according to official statistics.