Eliminate worries about consumer spending among residents | Increase | Consumer spending among residents
The General Office of the State Council recently forwarded the "Measures for Restoring and Expanding Consumption" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, proposing 20 specific policy measures around six aspects: stabilizing bulk consumption, expanding service consumption, promoting rural consumption, expanding new consumption, improving consumption facilities, and optimizing the consumption environment. The aim is to deeply implement the strategy of expanding domestic demand, fully leverage the fundamental role of consumption in economic development, and enhance the driving force of high-quality development.
Since the beginning of this year, China's economic structure has been continuously optimized, and the driving force of domestic demand has continued to strengthen. The contribution rate of demand to economic growth in the first half of the year reached 110.8%, an increase of 59.4 percentage points year-on-year, with the final consumption contribution rate reaching 77.2%, an increase of 46.4 percentage points. Improving the consumption ability of residents is to make them "wealthy enough to spend", while increasing their willingness to consume is to make them "wealthy enough to want to spend" and "wealthy enough to dare to spend". In the next stage, how to further expand resident consumption, better play the fundamental role of consumption in economic development, and improve resident consumption ability and willingness is the key.
Increasing resident income is the most direct means to improve their consumption ability, and promoting employment is the key to increasing resident income. Compared with some phased and temporary income increase policies, promoting employment for residents can better help them form stable expectations for income growth and increase their willingness to consume. Various regions should continuously innovate and implement support policies for various business entities, fully leveraging the crucial role of business entities in stabilizing and expanding their positions. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the promotion and service of employment for key groups such as college graduates and migrant workers, provide employment assistance for disadvantaged individuals, and improve employment quality and efficiency through vocational skills training services, ensuring the rights of employed individuals.
We should improve the level of equalization of basic public services. One important reason for the low willingness of residents to consume is their reluctance to consume due to pressures such as education, healthcare, elderly care, and housing. Improving the basic public services and equalization level in these areas can greatly eliminate the worries of residents about consumption and effectively increase their willingness to consume. In the long run, improving the level of equalization of basic public services can also promote the general improvement of human capital quality in the whole society, thereby fundamentally increasing resident income and enhancing consumption capacity. We should flexibly use various broad fiscal policy tools, increase investment in the field of people's livelihood, and coordinate with monetary policy to jointly make up for the shortcomings in the field of people's livelihood. At the same time, further improve the social security system and continuously expand the coverage of social security.
We also need to continuously increase supply innovation. The structural contradiction between supply and demand caused by the inability of product quality to meet the demand for consumption upgrading is also an important reason for the low consumption willingness of residents. A prominent function of supply innovation is to improve the quality of consumer goods, effectively meet the upgrading needs of residents, and enhance their willingness to consume. Supply innovation can also lower the prices of consumer goods and indirectly improve the consumption capacity of residents. In addition, it may also create new consumer demand and even subvert traditional consumption patterns. Therefore, we should continuously increase precise support for high-tech enterprises and "specialized, refined, unique, and new" enterprises, continuously optimize policies such as fiscal incentives, tax incentives, credit incentives, and industrial fund support, and create a fair, efficient, and open market environment for them, encourage technological and product innovation, and actively create new consumption growth points.
