Reporter Liu Yanfang
Consumption, which is linked to economic development and people's livelihood, is the main engine of economic growth and plays a fundamental role in economic development. In 2023, China's final consumption expenditure will drive economic growth by 43 percentage points, the fundamental role of consumption is more significant. **The Economic Work Conference proposed to cultivate and expand new consumption, vigorously develop digital consumption, green consumption, and healthy consumption, and actively cultivate new consumption growth points such as smart homes, cultural and entertainment tourism, sports events, and domestic "trendy products".
During the two sessions of the National People's Congress this year, Li Chuyuan, deputy to the National People's Congress, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group, prepared 9 suggestions to promote consumption and increase fertility rate, all of which focused on the hot spots and pain points of social and people's livelihood and economic development. Among them, the proposal to set up the eighth day of the first lunar month as the "Chinese New Year Consumption Festival" has received widespread attention.
Traditional festivals have become an important node to improve people's happiness index, promote the promotion of excellent traditional Chinese culture, and stimulate the growth of domestic demand. In particular, the eighth day of the first lunar month of this year was included in the Spring Festival holiday for the first time, and the Spring Festival holiday was one more day, the reunion was one more day, and the happiness was one more day, which not only enhanced the cultural atmosphere of the Spring Festival, but also promoted holiday consumption. Li Chuyuan said that the eighth day of the Lunar New Year was set up as the "Chinese New Year Consumption Festival", aiming to let holiday consumption continue to inject new momentum into economic development.
Set up the "Chinese New Year Consumption Festival" on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year to enhance the consumption momentum in the latter part of the Spring Festival
Extremely popular scenic spots, thriving business districts, and lively temple fairs ......In the Year of the Dragon, all kinds of markets ushered in a "good start". Thanks to the "longest Spring Festival in history", the whole people have spent a Spring Festival with strong flavor, vitality and popularity, and the festival consumer market is also very "hot and hot". According to the statistics of the Ministry of Commerce, the passenger flow and turnover of the national demonstration pedestrian street during the Spring Festival holiday this year increased by 32 year-on-year9% and 361%；The sales of catering enterprises monitored by the Ministry of Commerce increased by about 17% year-on-year; The total cost of domestic tourists is 63268.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 473%；The movie box office 801.6 billion yuan, a record high at the box office of the Spring Festival.
Last year, I put forward a proposal to extend the Spring Festival holiday to 9 days, and this year's Spring Festival holiday has been extended, and I have also conducted a special visit and research on the situation after the holiday adjustment. Li Chuyuan said that the consumer market continued to be hot during the holiday, reflecting the vigorous vitality of China's economy. However, in the survey, Li Chuyuan also found that there are still some problems with Spring Festival consumption. First of all, online shopping festivals such as "Double 11" and "June 18" are prevalent, but the consumption power of traditional festivals has not been fully tapped. Secondly, with the development of globalization, Western festivals have begun to be favored by young people, while the attractiveness and attention of traditional festivals need to be further improved. Thirdly, at present, the Spring Festival consumption festivals and first-class activities are mainly concentrated in the middle of the Spring Festival, and the second half of the Spring Festival to the Lantern Festival covers the return to the city season, the start of the season, and the beginning of the school season, but the consumption momentum is insufficient, and there is still a huge space for holiday economic growth.
To this end, Li Chuyuan suggested that the eighth day of the first lunar month should be set up as the "Chinese New Year Consumption Festival", which can not only connect the consumption heat of visiting relatives and friends before and during the Spring Festival, but also further stimulate the consumption demand for the start season and the Lantern Festival after the Spring Festival, so that the Spring Festival consumption cycle starts from before the festival to the Lantern Festival lasts for one month, on the one hand, it adds a festive cultural atmosphere to the Spring Festival, makes the New Year's flavor stronger, and on the other hand, it also helps to promote the development of the festival economy.
During this year's Spring Festival, Wang Laoji, a subsidiary of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group, took the lead in proposing the concept of "Super Ji Week 8" Spring Festival theme day. From the beginning of the year to the Lantern Festival, thousands of enterprises and merchants such as Wanglaoji, Guangyao Baiyunshan, Guangyao Xinkangmei, Map, Alipay, Meiyijia, Yijie and other enterprises and merchants formed the "Super Ji Week 8 of the Lunar New Year" action alliance, which distributed Spring Festival coupons worth more than 5 billion yuan to consumers, attracting nearly 15 million people to participate and harvesting more than 1 billion traffic on the whole network.
Distribute consumption vouchers to create a festive carnival shared by the whole people
Consumption is the ballast stone for the stable operation of the economy. In 2023, the total retail sales of consumer goods will be 4715 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 72%, and the contribution rate of final consumption expenditure to economic growth reached 825%。In the face of the severe and complex world economic situation, expanding domestic demand and promoting consumption will still be the top priority of China's economy in 2024. The Ministry of Commerce has designated this year as the "Year of Consumption Promotion" and has launched a number of policies to promote consumption from post-pandemic recovery to continued expansion.
Li Chuyuan suggested that in combination with the establishment of the "Chinese New Year Consumption Festival", the "Chinese New Year Consumption Festival" consumption vouchers should be issued, and the platforms, enterprises and merchants in the fields of e-commerce, catering, travel, tourism and other fields should be called on to carry out joint actions to issue coupons to consumers during the Lantern Festival from the eighth day of the first month to the fifteenth day of the first month, so as to form a benign interaction between enterprises, enterprises and consumers, and jointly build a Spring Festival consumer market promotion mechanism, so as to benefit the majority of consumers and create a festival carnival shared by the whole people.
More importantly, unlike the online consumption festival, the Spring Festival has a profound cultural heritage, and festival culture and consumption can complement each other and promote each other. Li Chuyuan said that festival culture stimulates consumer demand, and consumption growth can promote the inheritance and promotion of traditional culture. He suggested that all localities can be encouraged to integrate the local New Year's goods consumption festival and cultural tourism and folk activities into the "Chinese New Year Consumption Festival", and plan to hold a series of folk activities and consumption festivals with local characteristics, such as temple fairs, lantern festivals, ** festivals, time-honored brand carnivals, etc., to meet the material and cultural needs of the people.
In addition, Li Chuyuan suggested that we should take advantage of the development of the digital economy, vigorously develop digital consumption, formulate policies and measures to encourage new consumption patterns and innovate consumption mechanisms, such as using digital technology to enhance consumer experience, create contactless consumption patterns, develop customized and personalized products, and further open up online and offline integration, etc., to meet the growing personalized and diversified needs of consumers.