Focus interview： China’s bright economic start series measures to ensure the recovery momentum of consumption

　　Cctv news(Focus Interview): In a few days, the two sessions of the National People’s Congress will open. What achievements we have made in the past year and what new arrangements will be made in the future are of general concern to the society. The Spring Festival just passed in Jiachen was full of popularity and consumption. China’s economy can be said to be a bright start, which greatly increased people’s confidence. But the road of economic recovery is not easy for us. How to expand domestic demand, especially to make consumption better stimulate economic growth? While restoring the economy, how to better promote high-quality development in various fields? Over the past year or so, China has issued a series of powerful and effective policies. From February 29th, Focus Interview will launch a series of programs — — Accurate policy has achieved results. First of all, let’s pay attention to promoting consumption and grasping innovation. What is the effect?

　　The Year of the Loong Spring Festival, the consumer market ushered in a "good start".

　　Watch folk performances, enjoy lanterns and visit temple fairs … … A dazzling array of festival activities ignited people’s enthusiasm. If we use one word to describe the consumer market, I’m afraid the most suitable one is — — Fire!

　　Holiday consumption is an important window to observe the consumption trend. During the 8-day Spring Festival holiday, there were 474 million domestic tourist trips, up by 34.3% year-on-year. The total spending of domestic tourists increased by 47.3% year-on-year, and the box office of Spring Festival movies also reached a new high, reaching 8.016 billion yuan.

　　Dong Wei, Executive Vice President of Tsinghua University China Institute of Development Planning:"The consumption of this year’s Spring Festival holiday is hotter than expected, combining the traditional custom of going home for the New Year with travel consumption. The popularity of consumption during the Spring Festival also shows that on the one hand, China people are willing to spend; On the other hand, we can also provide support for various consumption scenarios. "

　　Behind the fiery holiday consumption is people’s longing for a better life, and it also hides huge consumption potential. However, the process of stimulating this potential in the post-epidemic era is not smooth sailing. At the end of last year, the Central Economic Work Conference pointed out that it is necessary to overcome some difficulties and challenges to further promote the economic recovery, mainly due to insufficient effective demand, overcapacity in some industries, weak social expectations, still many hidden risks, blockage in the domestic macro-cycle, and rising complexity, severity and uncertainty of the external environment.

　　Wei Zhang, Vice President of Research Institute of Ministry of Commerce:"The expected weakening of residents’ income will relatively lead to consumer demand or weakening consumer confidence; On the other hand, while consumers pursue more diversified and personalized consumption, consumption tends to be more rational. "

　　How to better expand domestic demand in the first year? The CPC Central Committee has made a series of decisions and arrangements, giving priority to restoring and expanding consumption. In 2023, the "Several Measures on Promoting Household Consumption" jointly issued by many departments, as well as measures to promote mass consumption of electronic products and automobiles, were introduced one after another. The financial sector introduced policies to help promote consumption, and the Ministry of Commerce also organized a series of activities to boost consumption, and tried every means to innovate products and services.

　　Wei Zhang:"Innovation is divided into many aspects, whether it is marketing innovation of operators, product innovation of producers, service innovation of service providers, etc., including scene innovation as a consumer carrier, all innovations are the most effective ways to stimulate consumption potential."

　　Last year, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Measures for Restoring and Expanding Consumption", also known as the "20 Articles" for promoting consumption, which proposed to lead and create new market demand with high-quality supply.

　　In the past few years, the cluster consumption of tourism and catering was the most affected, but it was also the most obvious recovery after the epidemic subsided. Since last year, in order to boost tourism consumption, all policies have focused on a "new" word. For example, create new scenes and create new experiences.

　　In this scenic spot in Xi ‘an, visitors can take the stage to interact with actors and take part in answering questions.

　　In this immersive tourist scene, tourists can not only wear tang style costumes to punch in and take photos, but also participate in a Tang drama, which is no longer just a spectator.

　　In 2023, all localities will continue to promote the deep integration of sports, music, special food and tourism, create new consumption hotspots, and make new progress in expanding digital consumption mentioned in the "20 Articles" on promoting consumption. The continuous maturity of new technologies is constantly giving birth to new formats and new products. During the Spring Festival in the Year of the Loong, the 3D UAV performance has become the "new favorite" of many scenic spots, and this performance is based on modern technology. Every UAV has to receive satellite positioning information accurate to nanoseconds, which requires powerful computing power.

　　Among the "20 Articles" to promote consumption, four are specifically aimed at expanding service consumption, including expanding catering service consumption and improving health service consumption. With the continuous upgrading of people’s consumer demand and the effective implementation of the consumption promotion policy, in 2023, China’s service retail sales increased by 20% year-on-year, 14.2 percentage points faster than the retail sales of goods, showing outstanding performance. In the future, service consumption still has a lot of room for growth.

　　Wei Zhang:"In terms of consumption itself, the increment lies in two ‘ New ’ In fact, it is either innovation from nothing to something. In fact, there is a shortage of service consumption from the original service consumption. With the development of economy and society, many new service consumption demands have emerged, which is part of the increase. There are still some increments, but the supply level can’t meet the growth of consumer demand well. The improvement of service supply capacity and level will also increase new service consumption demand. "

　　How to expand domestic demand in 2024? At the end of last year, the Central Economic Work Conference proposed to stimulate potential consumption, expand effective investment, and form a virtuous circle in which consumption and investment promote each other.

　　Dong Wei:"Through good investment, we will continue to lead and create new consumption hotspots. At the same time, through the driving role of consumption, we will also point out the direction for investment and make investment develop in a more rewarding direction. By constantly finding the combination between consumption and investment, we will promote the cycle between these two tasks and promote domestic demand to a new level as a whole. "

　　In January this year, the Ministry of Commerce and others jointly issued the Notice on Improving the Recycling System of Renewable Resources such as Waste Household Appliances and Furniture to further release the consumption potential of household appliances and furniture, and various localities and departments have also introduced a series of measures to further stimulate consumption vitality.

　　While promoting the recovery of consumption and investment and stabilizing economic growth, it is also an important direction for China’s high-quality economic development since 2023 to promote industrial innovation with scientific and technological innovation, especially to promote new industries, new models and new kinetic energy with subversive technologies and cutting-edge technologies.

　　During the Spring Festival this year, the highly anticipated C919 domestic large aircraft served Spring Festival travel rush for the first time.

　　C919 is the first jet trunk airliner with independent intellectual property rights developed by China according to the internationally accepted airworthiness standards. After years of research and development, on May 28th last year, C919 successfully completed the first commercial flight, and Chinese finally realized his "big plane dream", which also became an important achievement of China’s innovation-driven strategy.

　　However, at present, there are still some shortcomings in China’s scientific and technological innovation. In the future, if we want to stay behind in the new track of international competition and strive to achieve and run or even lead, we must firmly grasp the "bull nose" of independent innovation. In 2023, General Secretary of the Supreme Leader first put forward the concept of "new quality productivity", which pointed out the direction for us to cultivate new kinetic energy and shape new advantages.

　　Dong Wei:"In the past, for an enterprise, building a factory building, land, workshops, equipment, etc., these inputs accounted for the bulk of the investment, which means that production mainly relied on traditional factor inputs. What is more important for the new quality productivity? It relies on innovation. By playing a greater role in development through innovative elements, economic benefits and efficiency can actually be improved faster. "

　　Scientific and technological innovation is the key to develop new quality productive forces. In 2023, China established the Central Science and Technology Commission, re-established the Ministry of Science and Technology, deepened the reform of the science and technology system, and accelerated the realization of high-level science and technology self-reliance. In this year, China’s investment in high-tech industries increased by 10.3%, 7.3 percentage points faster than the total investment, which provided solid support for the development of new kinetic energy. According to the report released by the World Intellectual Property Organization, in 2023, China’s ranking in the global innovation index rose to 12th, and the number of the top 100 scientific and technological innovation clusters in the world jumped to the first place in the world for the first time.

　　Dong Wei:"By setting up new institutions, increasing investment in basic research, and accelerating the reform of the system and mechanism of scientific and technological innovation, we can see that in the past year, the importance attached to innovation in different fields has been continuously improved, and the channel for opening up scientific and technological achievements to industry has also been smoother. All these make innovation and industry more closely integrated, and the capital chain, industrial chain and innovation chain will be more closely integrated, which will play a very important supporting role in the cultivation and growth of new quality productivity. "

　　In 2023, China established the National Data Bureau, and the digital economy became an important engine to promote the high-quality development of China’s economy. By the end of 2023, China had built 3.377 million 5G base stations. Digital infrastructure construction represented by 5G, industrial Internet and data center has developed rapidly.

　　This year, China’s 5.5G network is expected to achieve large-scale commercialization, new progress has been made in humanoid robots and quantum technology, and generative artificial intelligence has been iteratively upgraded. Actively cultivating such future industries is also an important part of new quality productivity.

　　This year, seven departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, jointly issued the "Implementation Opinions on Promoting Future Industrial Innovation and Development", proposing to focus on promoting industrial development in six major directions, including future manufacturing and future information. When deploying this year’s work, all localities and departments have also placed an important position on accelerating the cultivation of new industries and developing new quality productivity.

　　Dong Wei:"We should take the development direction of these future industries as an important breakthrough to lead the development of new quality productive forces, and concentrate resources and all aspects of strength on supporting the development and growth of these future industries, so as to urge them to form a scale as soon as possible. It is necessary to cultivate new tracks like the cultivation of new energy vehicles in the past, and cultivate more new pillar industries of the national economy, so that China’s economy can truly occupy the commanding heights and truly realize the goals and tasks of Chinese modernization. "

　　Since 2023, China’s economy has been climbing over the hill, and we have been insisting on promoting high-quality development: from comprehensively promoting rural revitalization to promoting coordinated regional development, from actively promoting high-level opening up to better overall development and security, from comprehensively deepening reform to ensuring people’s happiness and well-being, with clear goals and full determination. On the new journey, facing the challenges on the way forward and promoting Chinese modernization with high-quality development, we are confident to win the initiative and win the future.