People shop at a shopping mall in Changchun, northeast China's Jilin Province, Jan. 23, 2023. (Xinhua/Xu Chang)
BEIJING, Feb.23 (Xinhua) -- China's economy has been building momentum since the beginning of the year and more measures are rolled out to further boost consumption.
Specifically, local governments and business platforms are targeting service industry recovery and emerging market potential for new growth drivers and long-term economic development, Xinhua-run Economic Information Daily reported on Tuesday.
-- Multiple support for service industry
"It is only a five-minute walk to the grocery store for fresh vegetables and fruits, so convenient!"
"It's such a fun to hang out with friends in the Zhongjie Night City to chat over delicious skewers and dig some nice and cheap accessories in the night market afterwards."
This is the real change felt in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and an epitome of the country's recovering consumption driven by measures boosting high-quality service industry development and smoothing economic microcirculation.
Promoting consumption is high on China's policy agenda for this year, as the annual Central Economic Work Conference held in mid-December last year noted that the country would prioritize the recovery and expansion of consumption.
A State Council executive meeting held in late January also urged expanding consumption, tiding enterprises and individual businesses in the service industry over difficulties, and the rolling out of policies for boosting large-item consumption such as automobiles.
At a recent press conference, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce (MOC), Shu Jueting, said that in recent years, the Ministry of Commerce has actively promoted the construction of convenient living circles. In accordance with the principle of "addressing what is in need", the MOC is pushing for targeted policies to address the shortage of convenient service facilities, improve basic living quality enhancement services. For example, through making shoe repair, key cutting and other tinkering businesses more standardized and orderly in people's daily lives, and making facilities such as elderly care and leisure and entertainment more abundant, daily life and consumption becomes more convenient.
"Next step, the MOC will work with relevant departments to carry out a three-year action plan to further promote convenient living circles, and to better benefit people's lives," Shu noted.
Guang Lixin, a researcher at the Institute of Circulation and Consumption Research of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, said that the optimized measures, with main focus on guiding consumption, planning activities, and optimizing platforms, among others, are expected to exemplify effectiveness.
-- Tap lower-tier markets
While promoting the recovery of the life service industry, the initiatives to boost consumption also involve tapping potential in emerging and lower-tier markets, with cars and home appliances more and more sold in rural areas as one of the examples.
The "100 Cities, 1000 Streets, 10,000 Stores" Consumption Index Report for 2022 co-released by ICBC and Liaowang (Outlook) Institute, a think tank of Xinhua News Agency on February 18 shows that the consumption structure of first- and second-tier cities has become relatively mature with limited space for consumption to further expand. In contrast, the consumption upgrading might be more prominent in third and fourth-tier cities than in larger cities.
Chen Lifen, a researcher at the Institute of Market Economy of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said that rural consumption, especially the durable commodity market posts great potential compared with that in the city. Carrying out activities such as cars and household appliances more available to the countryside could help such areas achieve consumption upgrades.
This has also become the key areas for policies to address. The office Promoting the Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) under the State Council recently rolled out measures for assisting SMEs' steady growth, restructuring and capaciy building, including expanding the consumption of automobiles, green smart home appliances, green building materials, and new energy vehicles through sales and promotion activities in the countryside.
--Cultivate new growth points
More measures are expected around cultivating new growth points.
The "No. 1 central document" for 2023, the first policy statement released by China's central authorities each year, proposed to promote the high-quality development of rural industries, cultivate new industries and new business models in rural areas, implement rural leisure tourism boutique projects, and promote the upgrading of rural homestays. The document also encourages the development of agricultural products direct picking, customized production and other modes, and the construction of live streaming and e-commerce base for agricultural and sideline products .
The Ministry of Commerce also said that it will promote the healthy and orderly development of new business models, facilitate the digital transformation of life services, foster online and offline integration, respond to consumption upgrading, boost green consumption, smart consumption, healthy consumption, and create new consumption scenarios to further unleash consumption vitality.
East China's Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, among many other regions have increased their support for new consumer businesses, launching initiatives including innovative financial support for new businesses models, and trendy themed consumer activities.
In Chen Lifen's view, new technology plays an obvious role in empowering consumer innovation, and the new ways of consumption are profoundly changing people's consumption concepts and methods. Optimizing relevant initiatives is conducive to boost innovation and cultivating new consumption growth points.
With the continuous optimization of both supply and demand, consumer expectations and confidence are enhanced, and consumption will regain its role of being the driving force of the economy, Chen Lifen noted. (Edited by Niu Huizhe with Xinhua Silk Road, niuhuizhe@xinhua.org)
A single purchase
