China News Service, Beijing, March 9 (China News Business Reporter Zuo Yuqing) "Promoting the replacement of old consumer goods with new ones is not only a powerful measure to enhance the current economic growth momentum and consolidate the recovery, but also a long-term strategy to promote high-quality development."
On the 6th, at the economic press conference of the second session of the 14th National People's Congress, Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao said that promoting the replacement of old consumer goods such as automobiles, home appliances, home decoration, kitchen and bathroom is one of the key tasks to promote consumption this year.
“Encouraging and promoting the trade-in of old consumer goods for new ones” was not only written into the 2024 Chinese Government Work Report, but also the list of “trade-in” products was clarified by ministers at the economic press conference.
How to interpret this list?
Data map: An automobile production line in a factory.
Photo by Zhang Yun
Trade-in for new brings a trillion-dollar market “shopping list”
Trade-in old products for new ones is no longer a new topic. As early as 2009, my country introduced relevant policies for trading old products into new ones.
And what are the new highlights of the new round of trade-in?
Wang Qing, deputy director of the Institute of Market Economics of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said, “In the past, home appliances and automobiles were still in the stage of rapid popularization, and replacing old ones with new ones was a short-term, medium- and long-term stimulus policy; but now the entire consumer market has shifted to stock-based, and the next step is for the entire The growth of the market and consumption is driven by inventory optimization and replacement as the main driving force."
"my country's automobile, home appliance, and home decoration markets are large in size. A considerable number of products have long service life and high energy consumption and emissions. Some of them still have certain safety hazards due to long-term use. For example, in-use products with National Level III standards and below There are more than 16 million passenger cars that meet emission standards, of which more than 7 million are more than 15 years old; on average, about 270 million home appliances have exceeded their safe service life according to standards every year." Wang Wentao pointed out the potential updates of these products Demand has entered a period of concentrated release.
According to Zheng Shanjie, director of the National Development and Reform Commission, the huge market space brings huge development opportunities and there is a lot to do.
"At the end of last year, the number of civilian cars in China reached 336 million, and the number of major categories of home appliances such as refrigerators, washing machines, and air conditioners exceeded 3 billion units. The upgrading of cars and home appliances can also create a trillion-dollar market space."
Data map: Workers inspect washing machines that come off the assembly line.
Photo by Zhang Jinggang
It not only benefits the people, but also benefits the enterprise. It achieves multiple things with one stone.
“Promoting large-scale equipment updates and replacing old consumer goods with new ones can not only promote consumption and investment, but also increase advanced production capacity and improve production efficiency. It can also promote energy conservation, carbon reduction, and reduce safety hazards. It not only benefits the people but also benefits enterprises. It achieves multiple goals with one stone. , this is a major benefit." Zheng Shanjie said when talking about the importance of replacing old ones with new ones.
Wang Qing pointed out to Sino-Singapore Finance that the update and upgrade of durable consumer goods is not a simple replacement of similar products, but a higher-end, smarter, more environmentally friendly and more personalized demand trend, which is also an important opportunity for the industry. .
"For example, cars are more structural. Mid- to high-priced models are growing very fast, and the market share of new energy vehicles has exceeded 30%. In terms of home appliances, the replacement of smart home appliances and green home appliances will become the main feature of the update of the entire market stock. .”
Wang Qing believes that under this premise, the increasingly expanding stock renewal will form a scale effect, which in turn will have a strong innovation leading and pulling effect on upstream manufacturing, guiding the upstream manufacturing industry to upgrade the industrial structure as soon as possible to adapt to changes in demand.
"The focus of this update is not just on the short-term effects and the product itself, it will definitely reflect the opening up of the entire system from the manufacturing link to the consumption link, whether it is industrial upgrading, innovation and development, or the formation of new quality productivity. Well, there must be such traction.”
Data map: Shanghai citizens ask sales staff about the subsidy policy for pure electric vehicles.
Photo by Zhang Jian
What "coupons" will be available for listed items?
To promote consumption, a good "trade-in" list requires supporting "coupons" to be attractive enough. How will relevant departments create a good combination of policies to achieve a "two-way rush" between consumers and businesses?
Related topics also attracted the attention of representatives and committee members.
Dong Mingzhu, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman and president of Gree Electric Appliances, suggested that it be clear that enterprises should independently bear the responsibility of replacing old ones with new ones, cancel excessive government subsidies, regulate the second-hand home appliance market, and increase the publicity of the mandatory scrapping system of home appliances.
Jia Shaoqian, deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Hisense Group Holdings Co., Ltd., suggested strengthening the full life cycle carbon management of home appliances, promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of enterprises, and further improving the disposal, recycling, circulation and dismantling of waste electrical and electronic products. Management systems and industry standards.
Zheng Shanjie said at the economic-themed press conference that in addition to "formulating and revising the standards" in the improvement of standards, they will also work with relevant parties to increase fiscal, financial, taxation and other policy support, strengthen land use, land use, etc. Energy and other factors guarantee and technological innovation support, etc.
"The policy mix must not only match consumer-side policies with supply-side policies, but also match fiscal policies with conventional consumption-promoting policies, and improve relevant supporting systems for products," Wang Qing said.
Wang Qing said, “In the past, fiscal policies were more biased towards infrastructure investment and the upstream manufacturing sector, but from the current point of view, more focus needs to be placed on how to lead the upgrade of the consumer side and indirectly form a virtuous cycle; at the same time, It is necessary to solve the outstanding blocking points and shortcomings of products in the consumption process, so as to fundamentally form a systematic policy effect." (End)