Lianhe Zaobao:
The contribution of consumption to China's economy shrank significantly last year. China's top leaders emphasize giving top priority to restoring and expanding consumption. How do you assess the current consumption situation in China? What measures will the Chinese government take to boost consumption? Thank you.
Li Chunlin:
I am glad to answer your questions. You've raised three questions. How to evaluate the current consumption situation in China? What are the unfavorable factors restricting consumption? And what measures will be taken to boost consumption?
Final consumption is the enduring driving force for economic growth. Overall, China's consumer market has shown a trend of rapid recovery. With increasingly frequent regional population flows, there has been a significant increase in cross-provincial travel and tourism. Catering, culture, entertainment and other industries have picked up rapidly. And with the impact of traditional Chinese holidays, including the Spring Festival and the Lantern Festival, China's consumption got off to a good start at the beginning of the year. I'll share the statistics. During the Spring Festival, domestic tourism revenue reached 375.8 billion yuan, up 30% year on year, and 308 million domestic tourist visits were made, up 23.1% from last year. These two numbers are equal to 73% and 89% of the same period in 2019, respectively. Sales revenue of China's consumption-related sectors rose by 12.2%, and online retail sales of physical goods increased by 14.5%. So, judging from the numbers seen during the Spring Festival, the recovery of consumption has accelerated since the beginning of the year. As uncertainties restricting the release of consumption are gradually eliminated and consumption potential is unleashed rapidly, the growth rate of major indicators in the consumption sector is expected to increase gradually in the first half of this year. Looking ahead to the whole year, consumption can also become the main driving force of economic growth and play a more fundamental role. This is a prediction for the consumption situation of this year.
The Central Economic Work Conference emphasized that the recovery and expansion of consumption should be given top priority. As Mr. Zhao Chenxin mentioned, last year's Central Economic Work Conference stated that stability should be taken as the priority, and progress should be made while stability is ensured. Moreover, growth, employment and prices should also be stabilized. Consumption has played a fundamental role and made a key impact on stabilizing growth.
In the next step, we will fully implement the guiding principles of the 20th CPC National Congress and the Central Economic Work Conference, and promote the sustained recovery and expansion of consumption. Our work will focus on the following four aspects.
First, we will take multiple measures to promote the steady growth of consumption. We will issue policies for the recovery and expansion of consumption. We will introduce practical and effective policies and measures to stabilize bulk consumption, increase services consumption, expand rural consumption, and create a safe consumption environment to release residents' consumption potential.
Second, we will enhance the consumption capacity of residents. Consumption capacity is based on employment and income. We must come up with an innovative mechanism to promote a full-chain, virtuous cycle of employment, income distribution, and consumption. We will increase the income of urban and rural residents through multiple channels, and work to ensure the supply of basic consumer goods and keep their prices stable, so that residents can consume with stable incomes and have the confidence to spend.
Third, we will improve the consumption environment. We will develop the consumption promotion system and mechanisms, formulate polices to create a safe consumption environment, improve the quality management system, and optimize the diversified settlement mechanism for consumption disputes and the mediation mechanism for online consumer disputes. We will continue to optimize the consumption environment so that people will have a stronger sense of gain and are more willing to consume.
Fourth, we will foster new areas for consumption growth. We will vigorously advocate green consumption and new types of consumption. We will support consumption in key areas such as housing improvement, new energy vehicles, elderly care services, education, medical care, culture, health and sports. We will encourage the development of new forms, models and scenarios of consumption to further stimulate the vitality of the consumer market.
Over the coming year, we will adopt various policy tools to deal with the unfavorable factors restricting consumption. We have the confidence and capability to implement measures to boost consumption so that consumption will contribute more to the annual GDP growth of around 5% this year. Thank you.
