China Introduces Multiple Measures to Boost Consumption, Expand Domestic Demand and Stabilize Foreign Trade
On 6 March, relevant authorities announced at an economic-themed press conference that this year they will adhere to the "policy + activities" dual-drive mechanism, further implement a special campaign to boost consumption, fully promote consumption and expand domestic demand. Meanwhile, focusing on the key priorities of building a strong trading nation, they will introduce a number of additional policies to steadily maintain the basic fundamentals of foreign trade and drive high-quality economic development.
This year, relevant authorities will integrate improving people’s livelihoods with promoting consumption, take the "policy + activities" dual-drive as the core, further carry out the special consumption promotion campaign, and continuously build the "Shop in China" brand. They will also introduce supporting policies such as the expansion and upgrading of commodity consumption and the 2.0 version of tax refund for departure, so as to release consumption potential in multiple dimensions.
In the field of commodity consumption, the policy of trade-in for consumer goods will be continued, with the implementation mechanism further optimized to upgrade the trade-in policy from Version 1.0 to Version 2.0. Priority will be given to supporting green and intelligent commodities as well as offline physical retail, so as to expand market space and inject vitality into new industries and tracks. Meanwhile, efforts will be stepped up to promote pilot projects for new consumption formats, models and scenarios. The central finance has allocated special funds to support 50 pilot cities in focusing on key areas such as first-launch economy and cross-border integration, building a number of consumption scenarios with strong experience, wide driving effect and high visibility to further activate the consumption market.
In the field of service consumption, focus will be placed on key and potential areas, with special supporting policies improved to directly benefit consumers and operators. Emphasis will be laid on 6 key areas including transportation, housekeeping, online audio-visual, accommodation and tourism, automobile after-market and inbound consumption, as well as 3 potential areas such as performances, sports events and experiential services, to strengthen policy guarantees. At the same time, continuous efforts will be made to promote "opening up to the outside world and liberalizing the domestic market" in the service consumption field, expand market access and opening-up areas with a focus on the service industry, ensure the effective implementation of opening-up pilot projects in relevant fields, and remove unreasonable restrictive measures in the domestic service sector to continuously expand the supply of high-quality services.
In the field of foreign trade, the overall situation in the first two months of this year has continued the trend of last year, laying a foundation for the whole year’s development. Relevant authorities made it clear that this year they will focus on the three pillars of building a strong trading nation — goods trade, services trade and digital trade, strengthen overall coordination, and fully stabilize the basic fundamentals of foreign trade.
In response to the actual situation of foreign trade development, relevant authorities will balance stability promotion and quality improvement, optimize policy support and guidance, take proactive measures to address new situations and problems in development, and study and introduce additional policy measures focusing on intermediate goods trade, industrial and supply chain cooperation, fiscal, taxation and finance, and the development environment. Meanwhile, focusing on new areas and formats, they will accelerate the development of digital trade and green trade, promote the export of products such as artificial intelligence products and green power equipment, and continuously foster new drivers of foreign trade to support its high-quality development.
