China's home appliance sales surge under trade-in program during National Day holiday

China's trade-in program for home appliances during the National Day holiday has led to a surge in sales revenues which topped 17.835 billion yuan (about 2.53 billion U.S. dollars), according to data from the Ministry of Commerce (MOC).

During the seven-day National Day holiday starting on Oct 1, nearly 2.52 million consumers purchased 3.745 million units across eight categories of household appliances through the trade-in program, with sales reaching 17.835 billion yuan.

The eight categories were refrigerators, washing machines, televisions, air conditioners, computers, water heaters, household stoves and range hoods.

Among them, the top three categories were air conditioners, refrigerators and computers, with sales reaching 4.519 billion yuan, 3.797 billion yuan, and 2.624 billion yuan, respectively.

Since the introduction of the trade-in policy for home appliances, about 8.24 million consumers have purchased about 11.78 million home appliances in eight categories, generating sales exceeding 55.793 billion yuan.

"The consumer traffic in our store has increased dramatically, almost tripling that of last year, and our sales have more than doubled," said Wang Yisheng, a home appliance store owner in Nanjing City of east China's Jiangsu Province.

The country also reported a surge in vehicle sales. As of Oct 7 midnight, the MOC's automobile trade-in platform had received over 1.27 million subsidy applications, driving new car sales to exceed 160 billion yuan, of which applications for subsidies related to new energy vehicles accounted for more than 60 percent of the total.

"I have been driving my old car for eight years. I am very satisfied with the power, handling and comfort of the new car. After I learned about the generous incentives offered by the government's 'trade-in' policy, I made the purchase without hesitation," said Mr. Chen, a consumer from Yongzhou City of central China's Hunan Province.

China's home appliance sales surge under trade-in program during National Day holiday

In expanding domestic demand through consumption growth, China will integrate efforts in boosting consumption with those in delivering benefits to the people, and further promote increase of the earnings of middle- and low-income groups, said Zheng Shanjie, director of the National Development and Reform Commission, at a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday.

Further expanding domestic demand is one of the measures for systematically implementing a package of incremental policies to solidly promote economic growth, structural optimization and sustained momentum of development, according to Zheng.

"We will intensify support for specific groups. Before the National Day holiday, we have issued one-time living allowances to people in difficulty including those facing special difficulties and orphans. We will lift the level of financial aid for students and expand coverage of relevant policies. We will raise the cap of government-subsidized student loans for junior college and university students, and those pursuing master's or doctor's degrees, and promote the lowering of interest rates of such loans," said the official.

Zheng said China will promote continued expansion of consumption on bulk commodities through large-scale upgrading of equipment and the replacement of old consumer goods with new ones.

"We will expand consumption on services including elderly care and childcare, which are paid widespread attention across the society. We will support and regulate social forces in developing elderly care and childcare industries, enhance improvement of the policy system to boost birth rates, upgrade basic public services for childbirth and pediatric medical care. And we will foster new forms of consumption such as digital consumption and green consumption, and make the supply side better adapt to medium- and high-end demands," said Zheng.

China to further expand domestic demand