In the face of the great changes not seen in a century and the intertwined resonance of the global covid-19 pneumonia epidemic, the world has entered a period of turbulence and change, and the unstable and uncertain factors in the external environment of China’s economic development have increased significantly. China has put forward and intensified efforts to build a new development pattern of China’s international double cycle to cope with changes in the internal and external environment. As one of the “troikas” driving economic growth, consumption has played an increasingly strong role in supporting the national economy in recent years. Therefore, in this process, how to find new consumption growth points, strive to stimulate the growth potential of the Chinese market, and then cultivate a stronger Chinese market is the key to China’s construction of a new development pattern. Based on this, the 4th Hongqiao International Economic Forum specially held the sub forum of “new consumption trend under the dual cycle development pattern”, which aims to focus on discussing the opportunities and challenges brought by the new consumption trend and help speed up the construction of a new development pattern.
In the new development pattern of double cycle, “Taking China’s large cycle as the main body” means to give full play to the advantages of China’s super large-scale market, effectively change the development mode, optimize the consumption structure, build a modern industrial system, and achieve higher quality, more efficient, fairer, more sustainable and safer development on the basis of supply side structural reform. By “concentrating on running our own affairs”, we will not only add impetus to China’s economic development, but also further drive the recovery of the world economy. “China’s international double cycle” means to attract global resource elements through China’s big cycle, make full use of China’s international markets and resources, and promote the coordinated development of domestic and foreign demand, import and export, foreign investment and foreign investment with deeper reform and higher quality opening-up, so as to form a country with stronger innovation and higher added value A safer and more reliable industrial chain and supply chain will help China move forward in the global industrial chain.
As an important engine of economic development and the ultimate goal and driving force of production, consumption plays an important role in promoting high-quality development and building a new development pattern. Over the past few years, the scale of China’s consumer market has not only increased significantly, from 28.7 trillion yuan in 2015 to 39.2 trillion yuan in 2020, and then to 44 trillion yuan in 2021. Moreover, the consumption structure has been significantly optimized, and various new consumption formats have flourished.
At the same time, in the new historical stage, China is still facing problems such as insufficient matching between product supply and people’s consumption demand, China’s consumption potential still needs to be further released, the supply of high-quality goods and services is still insufficient, and new growth points of consumption demand need to be explored in depth. Therefore, how to grasp the basic point of expanding domestic demand, give full play to its own consumer market potential, and then cultivate a strong Chinese market will be the key to building a new development pattern. The 14th five year plan clearly proposes to adhere to the strategic basis of expanding domestic demand, accelerate the cultivation of a complete domestic demand system, enhance the basic role of consumption in economic development and the key role of investment in optimizing the supply structure, and build a strong Chinese market with strong consumption and investment demand.
Based on this, in the next economic development, on the one hand, we should continue to explore the potential of domestic demand, constantly promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional consumption such as clothing, food, housing and transportation, continuously improve people’s quality of life while expanding consumption, strive to cultivate new consumption with multi business aggregation and multi scene coverage, and fully meet the consumption needs of culture, tourism, sports and green health, Further play the leading role of live e-commerce, social e-commerce and other consumption scenarios to fully stimulate China’s market potential. On the other hand, we should continue to start from the supply side and further promote the supply side structural reform to improve the ability of supply adaptation to lead and create new demand, so as to continuously meet China’s multi-level and diversified consumer demand.
In the process of constantly expanding the level of opening to the outside world, it is more necessary to give full play to the platform role of China International Trade Fair, service trade fair and Canton Fair, so as to increase the supply of high-quality products, so as to meet the people’s consumption demand to the greatest extent.
Based on the new development stage, promoting China’s gradual transformation from a productive society to a consumer society and constantly improving the people’s consumption quality will be an important key to meeting the people’s growing needs for a better life. Moreover, China has a large market with a population of 1.4 billion and the largest middle-income group in the world. With the further stimulation of China’s market potential, it is expected that the cumulative commodity import volume in the next 10 years is expected to exceed US $22 trillion, which will continue to create new space for world economic growth and make new contributions to world economic development.
(the authors are executive deputy director and researcher of Hongqiao International Economic Forum Research Center, Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, and master students of the Institute of international relations, School of Foreign Affairs)
