Recently, the General Office of the State Council issued the 'Special Action Plan for Boosting Consumption,' the first national-level consumer spending plan, providing systematic policy support for consumption expansion and upgrading at the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan period.
The Plan comprehensively deploys measures around expanding consumer demand, optimizing supply, and improving the consumption environment, clearly proposing key tasks including accelerating new forms of consumption, vigorously developing service consumption, and continuously improving consumption quality.
On new consumption forms, the Plan calls for strong support for digital consumption, green consumption, health consumption, and other new business models. It promotes deep application of AI, IoT, and other technologies in the consumption sector, cultivating new consumption scenarios such as smart retail and livestream e-commerce.
On service consumption, the Plan focuses on cultural tourism, sports consumption, elderly care, and childcare. Specific measures include encouraging local governments to issue cultural tourism vouchers, creating nighttime consumption clusters, and developing the silver economy.
On improving the consumption environment, the Plan emphasizes strengthening consumer rights protection, improving quality standards systems, and advancing consumer credit environment development. It also proposes optimizing consumption infrastructure layout and expanding the 15-minute community life circle initiative.
Experts note the Plan reflects high-level emphasis on expanding domestic demand and boosting consumption. Consumption has become the primary driver of economic growth, but China's household consumption rate still has significant room for improvement compared to developed countries.
Data shows that in H1 2026, total retail sales of consumer goods and services grew 2.7% year-on-year, with service retail up 5.3%. June retail sales turned positive month-on-month, showing a positive recovery trend.
Ministry of Commerce data shows the consumer goods trade-in policy continues to deliver results. Of the 250 billion yuan in special treasury bonds allocated for trade-ins, 187.5 billion yuan has been disbursed, with policy impact strengthening quarter by quarter.