China plans to launch the National Consumption Promotion Month, the annual campaign jointly organized by the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and other ministry-level departments on May 1. Simultaneously, Shanghai will launch its May 5 shopping festival while promotions are set to be rolled out in multiple regions including Beijing and Chongqing. China’s third annual national online shopping festival will also kick off, featuring premium domestic products, famous items from Silk Road e-commerce partner countries, as well as online services in the catering, tourism, culture and sports sectors.

The Ministry said the campaign aims to “further vitalize market entities, boost consumer market sentiment and fully meet people’s consumption demand for a better life”. Previously the campaign used to be held in the second half of the year. It will also include a wider range of events and activities in different places across the country, to promote consumption of various products and services online as well as offline. Some programs will last throughout the year. Officials and experts said that while China’s consumption market is recovering quickly from the impact of Covid-19, the campaign will provide new impetus  to the dual-circulation development paradigm, in which the domestic market is the mainstay and the domestic and foreign markets reinforce each other. “The promotional campaign has its eyes on the expansion of domestic demand and is expected to further enhance the vitality of market players, unleash the potential of consumption, accelerate market recovery, and improve consumption quality,” said MOFCOM Spokesman Gao Feng.

China’s retail sales of consumer goods reached CNY10.52 trillion during the first quarter, up 33.9% year-on-year. That also was an increase of 8.5% compared with the same period in 2019, and a rise of 1.86% compared with the fourth quarter of last year.

But consumption is not well balanced between different industries, business forms, products and regions, and people’s demand has not been fully met. The campaign will feature various offline activities and events, such as auto shows, brand exhibitions and shopping carnivals. In addition, online sales and promotions will be held for various products and services across a wide range of sectors, including catering, tourism, sports and education, with new business forms such as live streaming e-commerce and customized production being widely adopted to meet consumers’ diversified demands. From May 7 to 10, the first China International Consumer Products Expo will be held in Haikou, Hainan province. Bai Ming, Deputy Director of International Market Research at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, said that expanded consumption will be better utilized as a strategic basis for Chinese economic growth. According to Li Xuesong, Deputy Director of the Institute of Industrial Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, consumption did not recover as well investment and exports.

China should accelerate Covid-19 vaccinations to speed up the recovery of consumption, especially consumption in the services sector, said Li. He also suggested to inject more vitality into the infrastructure and manufacturing sectors, lower interest rates to better support the real economy and thus improve employment, and enhance income distribution among industries and regions to increase people’s incomes to further unleash consumption potential.

China also plans to promote the digital economy as an important engine for economic growth and further deepen its integration with the real economy, said Huang Kunming, Director of the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party at the opening ceremony of the fourth Digital China Summit in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province. He added that efforts should be made to strengthen innovation in science and technology to provide strategic support for China’s further opening-up. He also called for the development of smart cities and digital villages to provide more convenient and efficient digital services. A report reviewing the country’s digital development in 2020 was released at the summit by the Cyberspace Administration of China, highlighting China’s achievements in sectors such as 5G networks, big data, communications and artificial intelligence (AI). Currently, the overall level of China’s digital economy ranks second in the world, the report said. Steady progress has been made in the integration of the internet with manufacturing, and China’s centrally administered State-owned enterprises are accelerating the development of digital industry, and have set up more than 60 industrial internet platforms, said Hao Peng, Director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC).

This overview is based on reporting by the China Daily, Shanghai Daily and Global Times.