Beijing News:

In recent years, due to a rapidly increasing elderly population and gradually increasing costs of raising children, many Chinese people feel the pressure of having to take care of both. What policies will be taken to expand the supply of elderly care and child care services? Thank you.

Lian Weiliang:

Thanks for your question. Elderly care and child care are the most popular issues currently concerning people's livelihoods, with topics such as aging population, the three-child policy, and taking care of elderly and young children frequently trending on the internet. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council have attached great importance to this issue. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasizes that we should pay high attention to solving the problem of elderly care and child care, accelerate the system of services for the elderly, and support social forces to develop public accessible child care services. In this year's government work report, unveiled during the ongoing "two sessions," Premier Li Keqiang emphasizes the need to improve elderly care in urban and rural areas and publicly-accessible child care services. Increasing the effective supply of elderly care and child care services will be a key task for this year's economic and social development. In this regard, we will focus on three aspects: improving both quantity and quality, ensuring accessible and nearby services, and exercising strict supervision and regulation.

First, we will improve both the quantity and quality of care. At present, the social demand for elderly care and child care, especially high-quality services, is very urgent. By the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), there will be more than 9 million elderly care beds and over 6 million nursery positions for infants and young children in the country. We will expand the scale of high-quality resources to meet the public's needs. For those nursing homes and nursery institutions where it is hard to find a bed or position, the central government budgetary investment will give key support. Relevant policies including fiscal and taxation, credit, land, and talents will be implemented so as to greatly increase the high-quality resources supply of elderly care and child care services.

Second, we will ensure accessible and nearby services. After years of development, the total number of nursing homes and elderly care beds has increased significantly. However, the utilization rate of some beds is not high. Apart from the epidemic impact in the past two years, another important reason has been the mismatch between supply and demand or the lack of precise and quality supply. The public's most needs are affordable, convenient, accessible, and nearby services. Therefore, the focus of improving both quantity and quality is to ensure accessible and nearby services. Accessible means that the government should give greater policy support to help service agencies reduce costs and then lower prices for consumers. Nearby means to fully implement the requirements of providing elderly care and child care services in communities. At the same time, we will guide all kinds of elderly care and child care services to extend to communities and families.

Third, exercising strict supervision and regulation. The quality and reliability of elderly care and child care services are currently the most concerning problem. At present, there are indeed a number of problems in this regard. For example, some institutions provide low-quality services but charge unreasonable fees, which brought about consumer complaints. Some institutions lack integrity, or even cheat the elderly out of their money and then make off, which seriously impacts the bottom line of social morality and law. To prevent this, we will strengthen the coordinated supervision and regulation and further optimize standards and norms so as to comprehensively improve the service quality and level of elderly care and child care.

After the epidemic, China will witness a recovery and rapid growth of elderly care and child care services, which ask us to fully prepare for and increase its effective supply. Thank you.

Xinhua News Agency:

Since the outbreak of the epidemic, relevant departments have adopted a series of policies to boost consumption. However, the recovery of consumption is still relatively slow. How do you forecast the consumption situation this year? What other policies will be adopted to promote consumption? Thank you.

Lian Weiliang:

Mr. Hu will answer questions about consumption.

Hu Zucai:

Thanks for your question. Consumption is the final demand, the lasting driving force behind economic growth, as well as an important guarantee to meet people's growing needs for a better life. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council have attached great importance to this issue. We have steadfastly implemented the strategy of boosting domestic demand, carried out a series of policies and measures to promote consumption in an orderly manner, and consolidated the fundamental role of consumption in economic development.

In 2021, sporadic COVID-19 cases were reported in China, which affected consumption a lot. We earnestly implemented the decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, coordinated pandemic prevention and control with socioeconomic development, and promoted the improving and upgrading of consumption, which have boosted its recovery. China's retail sales of consumer goods totaled 44.1 trillion yuan last year, up 12.5% year on year, with final consumption expenditure contributing 65.4% to full-year economic growth. Driving GDP growth by 5.3 percentage points, China's consumption has re-established itself as the biggest driver of economic growth. At the same time, there are many new hotspots and highlights in the consumption sector. For example, online consumption bucked the trend and grew, and the online sales increased 14.1% year on year. The development of green consumption accelerated, with sales of new energy vehicles increasing 160% year on year. The demand for upgrading consumption became stronger, with retail sales of sports and fitness consumer goods maintaining double-digit growth. Thanks to the momentum from the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the consumption of ice and snow sports-related products continues to grow. Since January, online sales of ski suit and skiing equipment increased by 110.7% and 61.6%, respectively.

China enjoys a huge domestic demand market, with a population of over 1.4 billion and the world's largest and fastest-growing middle-income group. Last year, China's per capita GDP reached around 12,500 U.S. dollars, which is close to the threshold of the World Bank's standard for high-income countries. With the steady increase in personal income, a huge demand for upgrading consumption will emerge, and the momentum of sustained growth in consumption will remain unchanged. At present, consumption is getting more diversified, personalized and high-quality, and intelligent, green, and healthy consumption has become a new trend for residents. The strong domestic market provides solid support for the fostering of a new development dynamic, with the domestic economy and international engagement reinforcing each other and the former as the mainstay. However, due to the epidemic and other factors in the past two years, consumption of some of the services that entail face-to-face contact, population movements and gathering of people has been seriously affected. Last year, the passenger volume in China dropped 14.1% year on year, and the number of domestic tourists and the domestic tourism revenue only recovered to 54% and 51% of that of 2019, respectively. Therefore, the task to promote sustained recovery of consumption is still arduous.

This year's government work report made comprehensive deployments for boosting consumption in 2022. The NDRC will firmly implement the strategy of boosting domestic demand, further unleashing consumption potential, and taking multiple measures to promote sustained recovery of consumption on the basis of targeted and effective epidemic prevention and control. We will focus on the following aspects.

First is to enhance consumption capability. We will strengthen pro-employment policies, implement measures to stabilize employment, support innovation and business startups in creating jobs, and provide targeted employment support for key groups so as to increase workers' incomes through fuller and higher-quality employment. We will further improve social security, optimize income distribution structure, increase incomes of low- and middle-income groups, and further expand the middle-income group, which will lay a solid foundation for expanding consumption.

Second, we will cultivate new growth areas of consumption. We will better meet the needs of conducting pandemic prevention and control on an ongoing basis, actively develop online consumption, and promote the deep integration of online and offline consumption. We will also cultivate and expand new consumption forms and models such as smart retail, smart tourism, digital culture, and smart sports. We will vigorously develop ice and snow tourism and ice and snow consumption, and promote the implementation of the action plan for the development of ice and snow tourism. We will work harder to promote the consumption of services such as nursing care for the elderly and children, and develop elderly-friendly technologies and products and products safe and healthy for infants. We will upgrade and expand domestic services. And we will further expand county- and township-level consumption, and speed up the integration of e-commerce and express delivery systems in counties, townships and villages. At the same time, we must implement relief and assistance measures to support industries in difficulties, such as catering, retail, tourism, and transportation; promote recovery in consumption of consumer services; and steadily increase major consumption.

Third, we will vigorously develop green consumption. We will fully carry out the implementation plan for promoting green consumption recently issued by the NDRC. On the one hand, we must promote the expansion of the supply and consumption of green and low-carbon products. We will comprehensively promote green and low-carbon building materials, continue to support the consumption of new-energy vehicles, and encourage local governments to promote spending on green and smart home appliances in rural areas as well as the replacement of old home appliances. On the other hand, we will advocate a simple, moderate, green and low-carbon, civilized and healthy lifestyle and consumption model, and make green consumption a new fashion. We will enhance the national awareness of resource conservation, carry out in-depth food conservation campaigns such as the "Clear Your Plate" campaign, promote the greening, reduction, and recycling of commodity packaging and commodity distribution, and strengthen the recycling of waste and old materials.

Fourth, we will create a safe and secure consumption environment. We will optimize the urban consumption network under the framework of domestic circulation, promote the cultivation and construction of international consumption center cities, and promote the creation of regional consumption centers. We will improve community commercial supporting facilities, build a convenient urban living circle, and improve consumption infrastructure and service environment. We will strengthen the building of the consumer credit system and the quality standard system, improve the diversified consumer rights protection mechanism and dispute resolution mechanism, increase the quality and safety supervision of consumer goods, crack down on counterfeit and shoddy products, strengthen the protection of consumers' rights and interests, and strive to improve people's consumption experience and their willingness to consume. Thank you.