Front page of Securities Times: To tap into potential consumption, it is necessary to truly implement the principle of "having money and leisure". General Office of the State Council | National Development and Reform Commission | Securities Times
On July 31, the General Office of the State Council forwarded the "Measures for Restoring and Expanding Consumption" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission. The new policy includes key statements such as "no new restrictions on car purchases in any region" and "supporting the demand for rigid and improved housing". Interestingly, among the 20 targeted measures, the "comprehensive implementation of paid leave system" has attracted much attention and sparked heated discussions among netizens, with the topic reaching high positions on multiple platforms. This points to the foundation of promoting consumption: having money and leisure. Only by implementing the two can various consumer promotion policies truly rely on them and have long-term effects.
In the first half of this year, the contribution rate of final consumption expenditure to economic growth reached 77.2%, and the contribution of consumption to economic growth significantly increased. It can be seen that in order to better leverage the fundamental role of consumption in driving economic growth, since the beginning of this year, various regions and departments have been focusing on bulk consumption such as automobiles, home furnishings, housing, service-oriented consumption such as cultural tourism, and new types of consumption such as the digital economy to enhance efficiency. In the field of automobiles alone, there are at least 5 documents at the central ministerial level specifically deployed to promote automobile consumption itself or related supporting measures.
However, it should also be noted that in the first half of the year, the actual per capita disposable income of Chinese residents increased by 5.8%, slightly higher than the GDP growth rate, but far from returning to the high level of 8% before the epidemic. Income is the premise and foundation of consumption, and if income growth is not solid, the foundation for rapid recovery and growth of consumption is not solid. This point has been reiterated at the recent Central Political Bureau work conference, which aims to "expand consumption by increasing household income.". To increase residents' income, it is necessary to solve the employment problem, which is also the reason why the conference proposed to comprehensively consider the strategy of stabilizing employment. Only by solving the employment problem at the root can the cycle of "employment income consumption" be unblocked.
At the same time, leisure consumption has also become one of the difficulties in further expanding the consumption process, especially in offline service-oriented consumption such as cultural tourism, entertainment, sports, and exhibitions. Adequate time and predictable income are equally important for consumers. However, in the current situation where the operating costs of enterprises continue to be high after the epidemic and the working hours of some positions directly determine salary income, why paid leave is difficult to implement cannot be simply attributed to who is right and who is wrong. This is also the reason why relevant measures have sparked heated discussions.
To fully implement paid leave, on the one hand, it is necessary to ensure that employees have reasonable and legal vacation needs in accordance with labor laws; On the other hand, labor costs remain the main cost of enterprise operation. The government should optimize tax policies and business environment to help enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency, which will indirectly help enterprises better implement the paid leave system.
Strong resilience, great potential, and abundant vitality are still the main characteristics of China's consumer market. Only by effectively reducing the worries of consumers and even enterprises as much as possible, can various favorable policies to promote consumption truly play a better role.
