A senior official with China's Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday said that efforts will be made in 2025 to boost consumption with the launch of exclusive operations aimed at unlocking the potential of consumer demand on a full scale.
Li Yongjie, Deputy International Trade Representative of the ministry, made the statement when briefing media on high-quality development of China's commerce work at a press conference in Beijing.
Li noted continuous optimization of the structure of foreign investment in China over the past year and the stable growth in China's outbound investment.
International economic and trade cooperation in joint construction of the Belt and Road has kept deepening and registering solid progress, delivering more tangible results to the countries involved, Li said.
Domestically, the total retail sales of consumer goods surpassed 44 trillion yuan (around six trillion U.S. dollars) in the first 11 months, according to Li.
In the 11-month period, incentive policies such as the one on launching trade-in programs spurred sales in the automobile, home appliance, and home furnishings sectors, with the sales value topping 1.3 trillion yuan (around 177.31 billion U.S. dollars), she said.
"From the perspective of service consumption, with continuous emergence of new scenarios and new business forms of service consumption, the potential of service consumption has kept bing unleashed," Li said.
For 2025, the ministry has outlined a series of initiatives aimed at expanding consumption, including continued launch of consumer goods trade-in programs, enhancement of service consumption, adoption of systematic steps to further open the telecom, education, medical service and other sectors to foreign investment, and enrichment of supply for service consumption, Li said.
Efforts will be made to vigorously develop digital consumption, environmentally-friendly consumption, and health-related consumption, with the innovation of diversified consumption scenarios, so as to foster new areas of consumption growth, according to the senior official.