Consumption is the ultimate demand, which is not only related to economic development, but also to the people's aspirations for a better life. Recently, the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Special Action Plan for Boosting Consumption" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"). On March 17th, the State Council Information Office held a press conference, where Li Chunlin, Deputy Director of the National Development and Reform Commission, and other relevant department heads interpreted the "Plan". Cracking the prominent problem of restricting consumption: "China has been the world's second largest commodity consumption market and the largest online retail market for more than 10 consecutive years. The consumer demand and structure of residents are constantly upgrading, and new market space is still expanding. At the same time, it should be noted that under the influence of multiple factors, problems such as weak consumer confidence and expectations, insufficient satisfaction of some consumer demands, and the need to optimize the consumption environment still objectively exist." Li Chunlin introduced. The Central Economic Work Conference and this year's Government Work Report have both listed "vigorously boosting consumption, improving investment efficiency, and expanding domestic demand in all aspects" as key tasks for this year. We aim to promote the expansion, quality improvement, and upgrading of consumption, further solve the prominent contradictions that constrain consumption, focus on incremental policies that can strengthen, implement, and have a tangible impact on the masses, and comprehensively expand the consumption of goods and services. "Li Chunlin introduced the policy features from three aspects. Both supply and demand sides are making comprehensive efforts. The 'Plan' will increase policy efforts on the demand side, focusing on promoting residents' income increase and burden reduction. For example, proposing to promote reasonable growth of wage income, including continuing to implement the policy of stabilizing employment and returning unemployment insurance, focusing on key areas and key groups to carry out special skills training actions, etc. For the first time, the "Plan" emphasizes stabilizing the stock market and real estate market in the promotion of consumption document, and proposes corresponding measures to make the people's consumption confidence stronger, expectations more stable, and confidence stronger. Coordinating the promotion of consumption and benefiting people's livelihoods. Focus on benefiting people's livelihoods and propose real monetary policy measures. For example, in 2025, 300 billion yuan of ultra long term special treasury bond funds will be allocated to support the expansion of consumer goods trade in; In the action to ensure consumer power support, it is proposed to reduce the burden on families in various aspects such as childbirth, nurturing, education, healthcare, and elderly care. Regarding promoting consumption, we will provide more diverse and inclusive consumer supply based on the daily needs of the people. For example, supporting local pilot explorations for the elderly, promoting the installation of elevators in multi story buildings as a whole, and developing elderly meal assistance services; Accelerate the establishment of community service outlets for shopping, catering, housekeeping, and maintenance, allowing more residents to enjoy convenient services at their doorstep and under their buildings. Strengthen the coordination of consumer policies. The Plan mentions strengthening the coordination between fiscal, taxation, finance, industry, investment and consumption policies. Among them, there are not only investment in projects, fiscal funds, union funds, consumer assistance and other aspects, but also policy support such as macro policy consistency evaluation, financial credit, statistical system reform, and protection of rest and vacation rights. For example, the "Plan" proposes relevant measures to "protect the rights and interests of rest and vacation", implementing the paid annual leave system through strengthened implementation supervision, clarifying that illegal extension of workers' working hours is not allowed, and encouraging flexible staggered leave. The Ministry of Commerce will focus on expanding consumption through the "Four Major Projects" of commodity consumption, service consumption, new consumption, and consumption scenarios, continuously releasing diversified and differentiated consumption potential, and promoting the upgrading of consumption quality. "Li Gang, Director of the Market Operation and Consumption Promotion Department of the Ministry of Commerce, made an introduction. Implement the project of upgrading commodity consumption. The scale of China's commodity market continues to expand, but compared to the multi-level and diversified demands of residents, there is still a shortage of high-quality commodity supply. This year, the policy of exchanging old for new consumer goods will be implemented to expand the market. We will also organize and carry out pilot reforms in automobile circulation and consumption, actively support localities with conditions to take the lead in promoting efficient circulation of second-hand cars and developing the automobile aftermarket, and focus on cultivating new growth points in automobile consumption, "said Li Gang. Implement the service consumption quality improvement project. From January to February this year, China's service retail sales increased by 4.9% year-on-year. Next, the Ministry of Commerce will accelerate the improvement of the "1+N" policy system for service consumption, improve support policies in areas such as home service consumption, tourism consumption, digital consumption, and sports consumption, and play a "combination punch" of service consumption policies. In addition, we will increase the supply of high-quality services around opening up to the outside world and opening up to the inside world. Implement a new consumption cultivation project. Since last year, the first store has intensively launched new products, showcased new scenes, and sparked a buying frenzy. The Ministry of Commerce will actively promote the launch of the economy with relevant departments, encourage domestic and foreign enterprises to open their first stores, hold debut shows and exhibitions, and continue to activate consumer potential. We will also organize activities such as the "Dual Product Online Shopping Festival", "Digital Commerce Promotes Agriculture and Celebrates Harvest", and "Silk Road Cloud Product E-commerce Festival" to cultivate quality e-commerce, develop "artificial intelligence+consumption", promote "intellectual property (IP)+consumption", and continue to create new consumption growth points. Implement innovative projects in consumer scenarios. Currently, consumer scenes such as intangible cultural heritage markets, immersive cultural tourism, trendy experience stores, and creative cafes are accelerating towards "new". We will organize and carry out the 'Buy in China' series of activities to create more 'must buy, must eat, playable, and observable' integrated consumption scenarios for business travel, culture, sports, and health. At the same time, we will continue to implement urban commercial quality improvement actions, create more high-quality pedestrian streets and commercial districts, and enhance the shopping experience, "said Li Gang. In terms of the effectiveness of the policy of expanding the scope of consumer goods trade in, as of March 16th, the total number of applications for trade in of automobiles in China exceeded 1.32 million, and consumers purchased over 26 million units of 12 major categories of household appliances for trade in. More than 41 million consumers applied for subsidies for the purchase of 51 million digital products such as mobile phones; From January to February, the national scrap car recycling volume increased by 50.1% year-on-year, with a significant increase of 188.2% in February. Accelerating the formation of a strong synergy to promote consumption growth and boost consumption requires the coordinated efforts of various policies, including finance, taxation, industry, investment, and other economic and social policies that reflect the direction of promoting consumption policies. The Plan proposes to "give full play to the guiding and driving role of fiscal policies" and "use policy tools such as fiscal subsidies and loan interest subsidies". Fu Jinling, Director of the Department of Economic Construction of the Ministry of Finance, said that the Ministry of Finance would strengthen the coordination of various policy resources, support the expansion of consumer goods with trade in, support the promotion of new forms of consumption and new models, support the deepening of the facilitation of international consumption center cities, support the strengthening of fiscal policy and financial linkage, "active fiscal policies will continue to exert more efforts and become more awesome, further increase support for people's livelihood, strengthen medical care, education, old-age care, employment security, and support the improvement of residents' consumption capacity." The Plan proposed "implementing employment support plans in key areas, key industries, urban and rural grassroots, small and medium-sized micro enterprises" and "promoting employment of key groups" and other measures in the promotion of urban and rural residents' income. Chen Yongjia, the head of the Employment Promotion Department of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, stated that the next step is to focus on industrial development, expanding consumption, major projects, and livelihood services in the direction of job development, in order to open up employment opportunities for workers. We also need to focus on strengthening specific policy measures such as reducing workload and stabilizing employment, providing incentives for job expansion, supporting entrepreneurship, and matching people with jobs, in order to promote employment and entrepreneurship among key groups. A good consumption environment is of great significance in enhancing residents' willingness to consume. In February of this year, the State Administration for Market Regulation and other departments jointly issued the "Three Year Action Plan for Optimizing the Consumer Environment (2025-2027)". Ji Xiaoling, the market inspection commissioner of the State Administration for Market Regulation, said that the State Administration for Market Regulation will steadily promote the implementation of the three-year action plan with various departments, and create a safe, reliable and reassuring consumer environment. "On the one hand, we will fully release market vitality, promote operators to make independent commitments and operate with integrity. On the other hand, we will strictly carry out regulatory enforcement to ensure that consumers can consume safely and understand consumption. We must make every effort to improve the efficiency of consumer rights protection, make consumer rights protection more convenient and worry free." "Next, the National Development and Reform Commission will work with relevant departments to strengthen the" Plan " To implement and accelerate the formation of a strong force to promote consumption growth, and better meet the multi-level and diversified consumption needs of the people Li Chunlin stated. (New Society)