CCIEE Held 163rd Monthly Economic Talk Themed of Focusing on Expanding Consumption and Giving Full Play to the Driving Role of Consumption in Economic Growth

On May 29, 2023, the China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE) held the 163rd session of the "Monthly Economic Talk" with the theme of "Focusing on Expanding Consumption and Giving Full Play to the Driving Role of Consumption in Economic Growth." The meeting was chaired by Han Yongwen, Vice Chairman of CCIEE. Wang Yiming, Vice Chairman of CCIEE and Chairman of the Academic Committee at CCIEE, Li Xiaochao, former Deputy Director of the National Bureau of Statistics, Peng Feng, division chief of the Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau, Zhang Yina, professor of Fudan University, director of the Consumer Big Data Laboratory of the Ministry of Commerce, and director of the Consumer Market Big Data Laboratory in Shanghai (attending the meeting online) delivered speeches respectively.

The participants agreed that since the beginning of this year, with the improvement of economic fundamentals and market expectations, consumer demand has significantly warmed up, service consumption has rebounded strongly, offline consumption has accelerated recovery, and commodity retail sales have continued to rebound. However, the recovery of consumption is still unbalanced, and the internal impetus is not strong. We must do everything possible to restore and expand consumption and give full play to the role of consumption in driving economic growth.

Wang Yiming pointed out that we should take the recovery and expansion of consumption as the policy focus of expanding domestic demand, take the promotion of consumer confidence as an important premise, focus on activating service consumption, residential consumption and central city consumption, ease the restrictive measures on the consumption of high-end goods and services, stimulate potential consumer demand with reform and innovation, and give play to the advantages of China's super-large market. We will promote sustained economic improvement and usher in a new cycle of growth.

Li Xiaochao believes that on the basis of restoring and expanding consumption policies and measures to cover the whole country, we should increase our efforts to lean towards rural areas, narrow the consumption development gap between regions, and enhance the importance of bulk commodity consumption and service consumption.

Peng Feng proposed that we should closely focus on improving quality and convenience, optimize the hard carrier of commercial facilities, and fully promote the special planning of commercial consumption space to innovate consumption scenarios and expand consumption space.

Zhang Yina said that the consumption positioning of central cities is still stable, service consumption has huge space for development, and more physical consumption may be converted into service consumption in the future.

After the speeches, the participating experts engaged in interactive exchanges with the media. Some researchers and member units of CCIEE, research institutions, enterprises, and news media participated in the conference through online channels.