China's economic planner unveils 20 measures to boost domestic spending in 2023

China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's top economic planner, on Monday unveiled 20 administrative measures to spur domestic spending as the authorities aim to expand domestic market demand and ramp up high-quality economic development.

The commission vowed to stabilize spending of big-ticket items, expand service consumption, boost consumption in rural areas, explore new types of expenditure, improve infrastructure and optimize the overall spending environment, according to a circular published on the NDRC's website.

The NDRC said that provinces should refrain from implementing new car purchase restrictions, and regions that have limited car purchase should make adjustments based on local conditions. It also asked for stepping up spending on new energy vehicles (NEVs), pointing to efforts to build high-quality charging infrastructure and extending tax breaks for NEV buyers.

The government agency vowed to support those people in buying their first homes or improving their housing situation. It will push forward the work of ensuring timely deliveries of off-the-plan properties, ensuring people's livelihood and stable employment, while making improvements to the mechanisms and support policies that ensure housing supply and expanding the supply of subsidized rental housing to solve the housing problem of key groups including new city residents and the young people.

Also, the NDRC referenced improving e-commerce and logistics infrastructure in rural areas, and strengthening efforts to develop live-streaming and real-time retail sales in rural areas, prompting e-commerce platforms to enrich goods and services supply to rural areas.

Moreover, efforts will be made to boost the construction of digital consumption infrastructure as well as enriching application scenarios of 5G and gigabit fiber optic network.

According to the NDRC, the authorities will continue to promote the healthy and sustained development of the platform-based companies, and push forward innovations and breakthroughs.

The NDRC also stressed more financial support to sectors including hospitality and catering, culture and tourism, sports and health and elderly care, aiming to appropriately increase consumption credit based on real spending behaviors.

The Chinese economy grew by 5.5 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2023. In terms of demand, the country's economic growth was mainly driven by consumption and investment, with the contribution of final spending to the economic growth exceeding 70 percent over the period, data from the National Bureau of Statistics revealed.