China’s state planner unveiled measures to boost domestic consumption

 

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The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner, on Monday unveiled a package of 20 measures to boost domestic consumption as part of efforts to bolster economic recovery.

The NDRC vowed to stabilize spending of big-ticket items, expand service consumption, boost consumption in rural areas, explore new types of expenditure, improve infrastructure and optimize the overall spending environment, it said in a statement released on Monday.

Local authorities should not impose new restrictions on car purchases and the regions that currently have auto purchase curbs in place should optimize the restrictions based on local conditions and focus on implementation of the policy on removing restrictions on used car movement and facilitating used car trade and registration, encourage old car replacement and step up financial support for auto consumption, it said.

China will expand new energy vehicle consumption, build a high-quality charging infrastructure system, promote NEV sales in rural areas, extend and optimize tax breaks for NEV purchases, it said.

The authority will support rigid and improvement-based housing demand, ensure timely deliveries of unfinished properties, ensure people’s livelihood and stable employment, while expanding the supply of subsidized rental housing to solve the housing problem of key groups including new city residents and the young people, the NDRC said.

It will also improve e-commerce and logistics infrastructure in rural areas, and strengthen efforts to develop live-streaming and real-time retail sales in rural areas, prompting e-commerce platforms to enrich goods and services supply to rural areas.

Efforts will be made to boost the construction of digital consumption infrastructure, enrich application scenarios of 5G and gigabit fiber optic network, promote the healthy and sustained development of the platform companies, push forward innovations and breakthroughs, it said.

China will expand catering service consumption, appropriately extending opening hours, implement paid leave system, encourage off-peak vacation and flexible work arrangement, promote holiday consumption, etc, it said.

In addition, the authority will increase financial support to sectors including hospitality and catering, culture and tourism, sports and health and elderly care, it said.