China News Service, March 9th (Zuo Yuqing, Zhongxin Finance and Economics) "Looking forward to the whole year, consumption can become the main driving force of economic growth and better play a fundamental role in economic growth." On the 6th, Li Chunlin, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission pointed out at a press conference.

　　In the government work report submitted for consideration on March 5, the first priority of work in 2023 is to "strive to expand domestic demand and give priority to the recovery and expansion of consumption."

What are the key areas for restoring and expanding consumption?

How does the policy toolbox work?

　　Wang Qing, deputy director of the Market Economy Research Institute of the Development Research Center of the State Council, accepted an exclusive interview with the "China New Observation" column of Chinanews.com and gave an interpretation.

How to increase the income of urban and rural residents?

——Rely on efficiency and innovation

　　The government work report proposes to increase the income of urban and rural residents through multiple channels.

Wang Qing believes that consumption is a function of income, and the fundamental expansion of consumption depends on the income level of residents and their expectations for the future.

"The former is a decisive and long-term factor that affects residents' consumption capacity, while the latter is a supporting factor that affects residents' consumption propensity."

　　He said that even if income has maintained a certain growth, if there is no good consumption system and environmental support, such as good supply, reasonable taxation, effective consumer protection and other systems, consumers may have demand but cannot fully satisfy their needs. Release, or the consumer market is vulnerable to the impact of external factors and so on.

"Recently, the growth of residents' precautionary savings, lack of confidence in employment and income, and a drop in expectations have all affected the recovery and release of consumer demand."

　　So, how to increase residents' income?

　　Wang Qing believes that increasing the income of residents depends on the improvement of the contribution of labor factors in economic growth, especially the improvement of human capital accumulation, which can also be said to depend on the role of various labor factors in output and the degree of scarcity.

Increasing residents’ income should not simply divide the proportion between land, labor, capital, technology, and data.

　　"Fundamentally, to increase the income of workers, we still need to improve economic efficiency, especially labor efficiency, rely more on innovation to drive economic growth, and give more play to the role of knowledge and human capital, so that we can truly distribute according to factors without affecting A reasonable distribution ratio of other factors will make the process of increasing labor income and promoting economic growth sustainable," he said.

Which consumption needs to be promoted first?

——Stable "housing and transportation" consumption, stimulate young people and urban consumption

　　The government work report proposes to stabilize bulk consumption and promote the recovery of life service consumption.

Wang Qing said that to stabilize bulk consumption at present, we must first stabilize the consumption of "living" and "transportation".

"Currently improved and upgraded consumer demand for housing and transportation, whether it is housing or cars, has increasingly become an important component or even the main body of bulk consumption."

　　In the process of restoring and expanding consumption, we must pay attention to areas that have a stimulating role in matching supply and demand, especially the consumption of young consumer groups.

"New growth points in the consumption field, such as smart small appliances, prepared dishes, takeaway, outdoor, pets, new domestic products, night economy, etc., these consumptions are basically dominated by young consumer groups."

　　Wang Qing pointed out that young consumers are willing and good at accepting new things, have a high marginal propensity to consume, and relatively strong spending power, which can lead and demonstrate the role of consumption in the entire society.

Especially under the background of increasing single population and miniaturization of family structure, it has a strong vitality of consumption innovation.

Data map: Hangzhou Wulin Night Market.

Photo by Ye Lianzhong

　　At the same time, we should focus on restoring and expanding urban consumption.

"Of course, we are not saying that rural consumption is not important, but that cities are at the core of the entire consumption system and play a key role."

　　"The total amount of urban social zero accounts for nearly 90% of the total national social zero. Cities, especially big cities, also carry major service consumption and bulk consumption. During the epidemic, the urban consumption function and the support function for the regional consumption system have weakened. As soon as possible Restoring and expanding urban consumption and enhancing the city's role in supporting and driving the entire consumption system will become an important task in expanding consumption." Wang Qing mentioned.

　　In addition, Wang Qing also emphasized the need to pay attention to the role of Internet consumption and the platform economy in promoting consumption.

　　"At present, new e-commerce models such as interest e-commerce, content e-commerce, and social e-commerce are growing relatively fast, and they have a prominent role in improving the upstream manufacturing end to connect with market segments and niche markets. They are also new national brands, new domestic products, and new A new frontier for the development of Guochao. Our calculations based on big data show that for every 1 yuan added to online shopping, the replacement of offline physical consumption is roughly 0.64 yuan, but it will still drive about 0.36 yuan in incremental consumption.”

How is the policy toolbox applied?

——Pay attention to policy support for small and micro entity merchants

　　Regarding promoting consumption, Li Chunlin, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, said: "In the new year, we have many policy tools in our policy toolbox to deal with unfavorable factors that restrict consumption."

　　Recently, consumer vouchers have been issued intensively in many places, and some regions have also adopted inclusive policy subsidies.

　　Wang Qing said that the role of consumer vouchers is mainly to stimulate the release of existing consumption, and it is a very important policy tool in the government toolbox to promote consumption in the short term.

"Judging from the actual effect of more than 500 rounds of consumer vouchers issued in more than 20 provinces, the leverage effect on the growth of residents' consumption generally exceeds 3 times, and the leverage effect of some special categories even reaches 5-10 times."

　　"At present, most of the issuance and application of consumer coupons are for e-commerce platforms, which have a more obvious role in promoting online consumption and large-scale chain enterprises, but have little effect on the introduction of customer flow and business growth of small and micro physical merchants." Wang Qing pointed out , "From this perspective, some adjustments can be made in terms of differentiation, pertinence and issuance methods of consumer coupons."

　　Wang Qing believes that in the next step, the policy toolbox should pay more attention to the support of small and micro physical merchants, restore the market confidence of small and micro physical merchants, and improve business expectations.

　　"Through the platform economy and some policy measures, the offline physical consumption scene will be restored as soon as possible, so that small and micro physical merchants can obtain more customers, so that more people can come to the store to consume, and the rescue support of small and micro physical market entities and the expansion of consumption Better integration, so that various stimulus and support policies can better spillover and spread to entities in the small and micro market entities. Combining the reduction of operating costs such as taxes and rents with the promotion of business and market recovery may be the key to promoting small and micro entities ."He said.

　　Individual industrial and commercial households are not only the "capillaries" of my country's industrial chain supply chain and the "nerve endings" of the market, but also the "reservoir" of employment and entrepreneurship.

　　On the 7th, at the second "Ministerial Passage" of the National Two Sessions in 2023, Luo Wen, director of the State Administration for Market Regulation, said that vigorously promote the healthy development of individual industrial and commercial households.

Do everything possible to help individual industrial and commercial households take advantage of their advantages and integrate into the market, so that the "small man" of individual industrial and commercial households can burst out with "big energy" to boost the high-quality economic and social development of our country.

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