People's Financial Review: The upgrading trend of consumption structure is improving

Source: People's Daily - Opinion Channel Original draft

Just past the "double 11", high-end home appliances have once again become the favorite of consumers, on the e-commerce platform, entertainment TV, partition washing machine, fresh air conditioning, floor washer, high-end notebook computers and other sales achieved several times year-on-year growth. During the "Eleventh" Golden Week, duty-free sales of 9 outlying islands in Hainan increased by 63% year-on-year, and duty-free shopping consumers reached 250,000. In Shanghai, the Expo collects the world's good things, clothing, home decoration, entertainment and leisure and other types of goods...

North and south of the river, online and offline, the vitality of commodity consumption is gushing, and the structural upgrading trend is obvious. According to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics, China's upgrading consumption was more active in October, and the retail sales of communication equipment, gold, silver and jewelry, and cultural and office supplies of units above designated size increased by 34.8%, 12.6% and 11.5% respectively year-on-year.

Behind the structural upgrading is the support of the strong resilience of the consumer market. With the sustained recovery of China's economy, the overall stability of the employment situation, the increase in residents' income and the gradual improvement of social security, the stable recovery of commodity sales, and the effective release of residents' shopping needs. From the perspective of October, the resilience of China's consumer market continued to appear, and the total retail sales of social consumer goods increased by 4.9% year-on-year, and the growth rate was 0.5 percentage points faster than that of the previous month, rebounding for two consecutive months. At the same time, in October, the added value of consumer goods manufacturing above designated size increased by 6.5% year-on-year, 1.4 percentage points faster than the previous month. The steady growth of consumer goods production and the strong market supply capacity have guaranteed people's living needs and laid the foundation for consumption upgrading.

Behind the structural upgrading is the help of new consumption models. With the rapid development and wide penetration of information technology, online shopping and online consumption have flourished, which has improved the convenience of consumption and enriched the supply of the consumer market. In recent years, e-commerce platforms have used information technology such as big data to efficiently and accurately connect consumers and manufacturers, and have customized refined and multi-functional goods according to consumer personalization and diversified consumer needs. The supply capacity of new products has been significantly improved, the speed of product iteration has accelerated, the efficiency of the supply chain has jumped, and more intelligent and high-quality upgraded goods have flown into the homes of ordinary people through e-commerce platforms. In the first 10 months of this year, online retail sales of physical goods increased by 14.6% year-on-year, accounting for 23.7% of the total retail sales of consumer goods.

Behind the structural upgrading is the escort of various pro-consumption policies. In Shanghai, the first store economy and new product consumption are booming; in Beijing, the long-established brands are rejuvenated; Guangzhou cooperates with Hong Kong and Macao to build a consumer city cluster with global influence... This year, China has taken the lead in the cultivation and construction of international consumption centers in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Tianjin and Chongqing, driving more high-quality consumption resources into China, improving the urban commercial environment and consumption level, and making every effort to create a new highland for consumption upgrading, which has effectively promoted the optimization and upgrading of consumption structure. In addition, opening measures such as holding the Expo and improving the tax exemption policy have also opened up new channels for enriching the supply of the domestic market and promoted the expansion and quality of the consumer market.

Consumption is the final demand, the most important, stable and lasting driving force for the economy, and the direct embodiment of the people's needs for a better life. With the continuous improvement of people's living standards, the increasingly rich market supply, and the surging momentum of consumption upgrading, the structural optimization trend will be further stabilized and improved.