A coffee shop staff member (C) attends a livestreamed interview during a shopping carnival held in the Wangjing subdistrict as part of a consumption stimulus plan in Chaoyang District, Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Chen Zhonghao)
BEIJING, May 18 (Xinhua) -- New types of consumption have been flourishing in China in recent years thanks to the deepening application of new technologies such as the Internet, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
In the first quarter of 2022, China's online retail market operated smoothly. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that China's online retail sales reached 3.01 trillion yuan in the first quarter of this year, up 6.6 percent year on year.
The State Council, China's cabinet, issued recently a guideline on further unleashing the country's consumption potential and promoting sustained recovery of consumption.
According to the guideline, China will promote new types of consumption, accelerate the integration of online and offline consumption, expand and upgrade information consumption, and cultivate and strengthen smart products and new business patterns such as smart retail and smart tourism.
Experts said that new types of consumption have provided a new space for consumption growth and become a new driving force for economic development in China.
-- Continued application of digital technology
In recent years, driven by consumption upgrading and technological innovation, new types of consumption have gained fresh vitality.
"New types of consumption are not immutable, instead they keep changing in line with technological progress and economic and social development," said Wang Yun, a researcher with the Academy of Macroeconomic Research.
According to Wang, new types of consumption, characterized by digitization, the Internet and smart technologies, mainly include new business patterns and models such as online shopping, "Internet plus service", contactless consumption, platform-based consumption, and shared consumption.
Amid the COVID-19 epidemic, contactless business models and patterns such as smart supermarkets, stores, restaurants and malls ushered in rapid development, and online entertainment, fitness and tourism fueled consumption recovery and growth.
A case in point is online medical care. According to a report released by the China Internet Network Information Center, the number of users of online medical services in China reached 298 million by December 2021, surging 38.7 percent year on year.
-- In-depth integration of online and offline consumption
The integrated development of online and offline consumption, as well as patterns and scenarios, is becoming a typical feature of new types of consumption.
Affected by the epidemic, many market entities have taken the initiative to go online.
"Cloud procurement" and "online shopping" have become common in foreign trade. At the Yiwu International Trade Market, in Yiwu City of east China's Zhejiang Province, foreign trade sales are seen making inquiries with providers for foreign clients on the phone.
At the same time, major online e-commerce platforms are actively expanding their offline business layout.
Recently, the JD.com app launched the "JD New Department Store", which features global famous brands, limited products, gift sets, and customized new products, among others. JD.com will also open new offline department stores nationwide to realize the integration of online and offline scenarios.
According to experts, compared with traditional consumption, new types of consumption are more innovative and adaptable and have more potential for growth. The deep integration of online and offline consumption, in particular, has created new space for medium and long-term growth.
-- Efforts in tapping consumption potential
Recently, many regions have been continuously tapping the consumption potential both online and offline.
Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Yunnan issued consumer coupons; Chengdu held a digital consumption festival; Hangzhou launched a carnival on new digital and smart consumption...
New types of consumption scenarios with rich local characteristics are taking shape in China.
In Beijing, the "Internet Plus" consumption model is gaining momentum. In Guangdong Province, infrastructure construction such as 5G network, data center and industrial Internet has become important boosters for the development of new types of consumption.
Yi Shaohua, an analyst with National Academy of Economic Strategy under Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, suggested that the negative list for market access should be fully implemented, so as to channel production factors to new business patterns and models, and promote the transformation of production methods.(Edited by Yang Yifan with Xinhua Silk Road, yangyifan@xinhua.org)
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