Experts highlight that China's focus on stimulating consumption and optimizing investment efficiency reflects a strategic response to address insufficient domestic demand and unlock the economy's growth potential.
China's annual Central Economic Work Conference, which was held in Beijing on Wednesday and Thursday, reaffirmed the country's long-term economic resilience and decided priorities for the economic work in 2025.
The conference listed priorities in nine aspects for the nation's economic work in 2025, with the top priority placed on "vigorously boosting consumption and making investment more productive."
Focusing on vigorously boosting consumption, the conference outlined plans to launch a special campaign to boost consumption next year, appropriately raise the basic pension payments for retirees and intensify efforts to encourage equipment upgrading and consumer goods replacement.
Some experts noted that China is currently grappling with insufficient consumer demand. Stimulating consumption is expected to further unlock the vast potential of the domestic market and reinforce its role as the "main engine" of economic growth.
"Regarding the decision to prioritize consumption, there are some new specific measures, particularly the consumer goods replacement which has played a significant role in driving consumption so far this year. Due to the government's commitment to scaling up and expanding the scope of consumer subsidies next year, it means that for ordinary households, when it comes to consumption, they would enjoy substantial subsidies. At the same time, the range of items eligible for subsidies will be further expanded. These are all very tangible benefits for the general public," said Dong Yu, executive vice president of the China Institute for Development Planning at Tsinghua University.
The conference also underscored the importance of improving investment efficiency, a move tied to the broader goal of stimulating domestic demand.
"The shift in policy priorities is based on changes in the main contradictions within our current macroeconomic situation. The primary contradiction we are dealing with is insufficient aggregate demand and disruptions in the national economic cycle. This has necessitated making consumption stimulation, improvement of investment efficiency, and comprehensive expansion of domestic demand the top priorities and central tasks," said Liu Yuanchun, president of the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.
"The emphasis on boosting consumption is particularly evident in the 'special campaign to boost consumption' proposed during the Central Economic Work Conference. Previously, there was no dedicated action plan for expanding consumption, especially at the level of a unified, nationwide initiative. The introduction of such a plan this time highlights the need for greater intensity, broader coverage, and more policy tools to drive consumption expansion, making this a central point of focus," said Liu.
The priorities in nine aspects are as follows: vigorously boosting consumption and making investment more productive; leading the development of new quality productivity through scientific and technological innovation, and build a modernized industrial system; leveraging the leading role of economic structural reform, and ensuring the implementation and effectiveness of key reform measures; pursuing higher-standard opening up; effectively preventing and resolving risks in key areas, safeguard the baseline of preventing systemic risks, and continue to vigorously stabilize the real estate market; advance new urbanization and all-round rural revitalization in a coordinated manner, and promote integrated urban-rural development; intensifying the implementation of regional strategies and enhance the vitality of regional development; making concerted efforts to cut carbon emissions, reduce pollution, expand green areas, and accelerate the all-round green transformation of economic and social development; and strengthening efforts to guarantee and improve people's livelihood, and increase people's sense of gain, happiness and security.
China prioritizes boosting domestic consumption to drive economic growth
