How to activate the "blue ocean" of county and township consumption
【Economy Interface】
For a long time, large and medium cities have been the main battlefield to promote consumption. Massive consumer demand in counties and townships has yet to be awakened, and the enthusiasm for consumption in rural areas still needs to be protected. In 2019, the retail sales of rural consumer goods accounted for 14.7% of the total retail sales of social consumer goods. Compared with the vast rural space and large population, there is still more room for growth, which can be described as a "blue ocean".
The Central Economic Work Conference proposed that the expansion of consumption should be combined with the improvement of people's quality of life. Orderly cancel some administrative restrictions on consumer purchases, and fully tap the consumption potential of counties and townships.
How should the "rich ore" consumed by counties and townships be mined? What growth "troubles" are still facing activating county and township consumption? How to get rid of "worries" and activate new consumption potential in counties and townships?
Willing to buy and can afford——
Consumption in counties and townships opens up new markets
[Site] The
Spring Festival is approaching, and many farmers are busy buying new year goods and new items.
In Shilijing Village, Weiwan Town, Linqing City, Shandong Province, the reporter met the villager Li Yuepu's family.
"Now that the income has increased, many villagers around me have bought small cars. I just mentioned one to protect my family from wind and rain." Li Yuepu told reporters that because the 4S shop has a discount, he bought it for 100,000 yuan. Bought this domestic brand car.
"The Spring Festival is coming soon. I'm currently shopping. I'm buying two clothes for my children and buying some flowers and soil for growing flowers at home. It's very festive." At the express delivery point in Weiwan Town Center, the reporter saw Dingma Village, who came to pick up the express. Villager Wang Jinju.
“It’s too convenient to shop online now, with a wide range of online products and affordable prices. It only took me two days to get this one.” Wang Jinju said while unpacking the package.
"Now, there are more channels for farmers to increase their incomes, and there are more new consumer demands. It's winter, and the busy farming has turned slack. Although there is no livelihood in the fields, the farmers are not free. Some of them go out to work, and some work in local factories. Yes, the monthly income is at least 4,000 yuan. With the development of the express delivery industry and the Internet, online shopping has also penetrated into rural areas and has become a new form of rural consumption. In the past year, the average number of express delivery in our town per day reached more than 3,000." Wei Wan Said Wei Wei, deputy secretary of the town party committee and mayor.
Like Weiwan Town, the activated county economy has become a new driving force for China's continued consumption growth.
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, in the first three quarters of last year, the per capita consumption expenditure of rural residents was 9,430 yuan, a decrease of 1.6% in the first half of the year to an increase of 0.8%. The nominal growth rate has changed from a decline to an increase for the first time in the year. The rural consumer market has ample momentum and expenditure growth Continue to surpass urban residents.
Statistics show that in China, residents in counties and villages account for half of the total population, and the market in counties and villages has become a bright spot in the Chinese economy.
In a series of big data, new consumption trends in counties and townships have become increasingly clear:
Buying a car-Since 2013, the number of family cars per 100 households in rural my country has gradually increased, and the growth rate is higher than that in urban areas. The rural car market has entered a period of relatively rapid growth, but the total amount is still small.
Data show that the new energy vehicles going to the countryside started in July 2020 and the consumption of new energy vehicles in the countryside has been booming. The four-month sales of rural vehicles have exceeded 180,000. The vast rural areas have become an important consumer market for automobile products including new energy vehicles.
Buy smart home appliances-Suning Big Data shows that activating the county and township consumer market means tapping the consumption potential of 300 prefecture-level cities, 2,000 counties, 35,000 townships, and 66,000 villages. Taking 3C and home appliances as examples, more than 40% The share is concentrated in counties and townships, with a scale of nearly one trillion yuan.
At present, most of the household appliances with a relatively high amount of rural household appliances in my country were purchased during the "Home Appliances Going to the Countryside" from 2009 to 2013, and most of them have reached the renewal period.
To this end, Suning.com launched a new round of “upgrade and replacement plan” to launch consumer subsidies for green smart home appliances to promote home appliance consumption.
Buying a travel experience-Meituan’s big data shows that in the first nine months of 2020, Meituan provided online services to nearly 408,000 businesses involving catering, tourism, and accommodation in 819 impoverished counties across the country, and achieved nearly 450 million orders. 22.39 billion yuan in online transactions.
During the National Day holiday last year, 52 impoverished counties in my country achieved an online transaction volume of more than RMB 40 million through nearly 1.03 million orders, of which a large number of orders were for rural tourism consumption such as scenic spot tickets, country houses, farmhouses, etc. Digitalization helped the tourism industry Development has achieved remarkable results.
With the implementation of a series of preferential policies, farmers are more willing to consume. Bulk consumption and key consumption such as automobiles, home appliances, and catering have become the “pillars” of the county and township consumer market, providing a new outlet for opening up the county and township consumer market.
Stabilize employment and increase income——
E-commerce + logistics enter the village to improve consumption convenience
[Case]
Not long ago, the Guantao 2020 e-commerce live broadcast festival "Fresh Guantao, Internet celebrities are here" held at the Live Base of Guantao County E-commerce Park, Handan City, Hebei Province, attracted widespread attention from netizens.
Nine local Internet celebrities in Guantao County led the live broadcast. According to the statistics of the highest number of online users in the live broadcast room, more than 350,000 people have entered the live broadcast room. The total number of viewers in the live broadcast room has exceeded 1.25 million.
E-commerce entering the village not only allows rural consumers to buy good products, but also allows rural local products to "leave the village and enter the city."
According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, from January to October 2020, rural online retail sales increased by 8.8% year-on-year; in the first three quarters, the national online retail sales of agricultural products was 288.41 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.3%.
"E-commerce has unblocked the channels for agricultural products to enter cities and industrial products to the countryside, further narrowing the distance between urban and rural areas, promoting the rise of sinking market consumption, and enhancing the facilitation of rural consumption." said Li Guoxiang, a researcher at the Institute of Rural Development of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
In recent years, with the gradual improvement of rural logistics and Internet infrastructure, the sinking market led by counties and townships is releasing huge consumption potential.
"According to the distribution of China's regional population, the development of consumption upgrades first started in the cities, but the population of counties and townships accounted for more than half of the total population, and the consumption level was relatively lacking. This part of the region and the population has huge consumption potential. The consumption power and effective demand of Shandong University of Finance and Economics are imminent.
Behind the data, why is the consumption enthusiasm of counties and townships soaring?
The pockets are getting bigger and bigger, and farmers dare to consume.
Statistics show that in the first three quarters of last year, the per capita disposable income of rural residents nationwide was 12,297 yuan, a nominal increase of 5.8% and an actual increase of 1.6%.
The ratio of per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents was 2.67, a decrease of 0.08 compared with the same period last year.
"Income is the prerequisite for consumption. The income of rural residents has continued to grow rapidly, the income gap between urban and rural areas has narrowed significantly, farmers' potential consumption needs have been gradually awakened, and the rural consumer market has continued to be active, providing a steady stream of momentum for China's consumption growth." According to Hong Tao, director of the University’s Institute of Business Economics, on the one hand, rural consumption levels have increased and urban and rural consumption has become more balanced, which can promote the quality and expansion of China’s consumer market; on the other hand, consumer goods that are becoming saturated in the urban market have huge potential in the rural market. .
Experts believe that stimulating and increasing the disposable income of the people in counties and townships and improving social security have become a key to tapping the potential of consumption.
"In the short term, the epidemic will have a certain impact on household consumption. The key to truly activating the consumption potential is not simply to stimulate consumption or overdraft consumption, but to solve the structural problems that restrict the continuous growth of consumption. We must persist in reform thinking and use reform methods to improve The employment quality of county and township residents will improve the consumption ability of county and township residents, eliminate consumption worries, and enhance residents' consumption confidence.” Yang Guangpu, associate researcher of the Macroeconomic Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council pointed out.
"Promoting employment and increasing income is the basis for expanding consumption. Improving social security is conducive to building consumer confidence, optimizing the income distribution structure, and expanding middle-income groups is the top priority in solving the problem of expanding consumption." Xu Hongcai, deputy director of the Economic Policy Committee of the Chinese Policy Research Institute Say.
To "worries" and tap potential——
Make up for the shortcomings of consumption in all counties and townships
[Policy] The
Ministry of Commerce and other 12 departments have jointly issued the "Notice on Several Measures to Boost Key Consumption and Promote the Release of Rural Consumption Potential", which clearly stated stabilizing and expanding automobile consumption, promoting consumption of home appliances, furniture, and furnishing, boosting catering consumption, and supplementing The five tasks of equipping rural consumption shortcomings and strengthening policy guarantees.
The announcement of the notice focused on the background of activating consumption in counties and townships, and also aimed at many problems and shortcomings of consumption in counties and townships.
From the perspective of "growth", as the pockets bulge, consumption in counties and townships has been significantly upgraded; from the perspective of "troubles", the quality of commodities in the rural market is not high, and the pre-sales, sales and after-sales services are not matched. Many products The inability to effectively connect with potential rural consumer demand still restricts the release of consumer demand.
The process of "removing troubles" is the direction of rural consumption "tapping potential".
"Currently, rural cold chain logistics, network communications and other infrastructure are in debt; rural sites are scattered, logistics costs are high, and market players are not motivated to deploy rural areas. These are bottlenecks that restrict the development of rural e-commerce." Hong Tao pointed out.
Experts pointed out that to activate county and township consumption, it is necessary to further improve the rural circulation system, use the expansion of county and township consumption as a starting point to drive rural consumption, strengthen county and township business facilities and the construction of village logistics stations.
Promote the transformation and upgrading of the agricultural product supply chain and improve the backbone network of agricultural product circulation.
Accelerate the development of life services in towns and villages, support the construction of a living consumption service complex based in the countryside and close to farmers, and turn towns and villages into regional centers serving farmers.
In order to make up for the shortcomings of rural circulation infrastructure, the Ministry of Commerce, together with the Ministry of Finance, the State Council’s Poverty Alleviation Office and other departments, has carried out in-depth e-commerce into the countryside, supporting 1,338 counties and achieving full coverage of 832 national poverty-stricken counties; building county-level e-commerce There are more than 2,000 public service centers and logistics distribution centers, and 140,000 rural e-commerce sites.
"In order to deliver more high-quality and safe commodities to the countryside, local supply and marketing cooperatives are accelerating the construction of a county, township, and village management service network with the county as the focus and modern logistics and distribution centers as the support, and the development of fresh food community stores and smart farmer’s markets. In order to promote consumption upgrading in rural areas, we will build a business and service complex with various functions such as living supermarkets, catering and entertainment, and agricultural material sales." Liu Jinxi, executive director, press spokesperson, and director of cooperation guidance department of the National Supply and Marketing Cooperative Pointed out.
To make the consumption firepower of counties and townships continue to be strong, it is necessary to have complete "hard facilities" as a bedding, but also a healthy and orderly "soft environment" as the support to create a clean and virtuous market environment.
The business environment has become the "invisible engine" for the county's high-quality development.
"Strengthening the supervision of the rural consumer market is imperative." said Liu Junhai, a professor at the Renmin University of China Law School. From the perspective of commodity types, convenience foods, snack foods, alcoholic beverages, clothing, shoes and hats, and other "three-no" "counterfeit" products Should become the focus of supervision.
In terms of time, rural temple fairs, holidays, and weddings and funerals are periods of high incidence of infringement. The relevant departments should introduce targeted measures to maintain the order of the rural market.
"It is necessary to strengthen the construction of county and township commercial facilities, build a network of large-scale markets, mobile markets, and convenience stores to develop and produce more products that are close to farmers, so that farmers can buy products with a wide range of categories, good quality, and good brands. "Li Guoxiang said that by bridging the shortcomings and making up for the shortcomings, it will definitely create greater demand, release the long-dormant consumption potential, and make the Chinese economy more resilient.