To stimulate consumption, the National Development and Reform Commission of China announced that mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, and fitness bands will be included in the support scope of the two new policies (equipment updating and trade-in for consumer goods).
According to reports from The Paper and Securities Times Network, Xiao Weiming, Deputy Secretary-General of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at the "China's High-Quality Economic Development Achievements" series of press conferences on the 3rd that a special action to boost consumption will be implemented in 2025, combining the promotion of consumption with the improvement of people's livelihood. Initial considerations are to strengthen efforts from the following aspects.
First is promoting an increase in residents' income while reducing burdens. Large-scale vocational skills training will be conducted to support more workers in enhancing their positions and incomes through skill improvement. The basic pension for retirees and the basic pension for urban and rural residents will be appropriately increased, and the fiscal subsidy standard for urban and rural residents' medical insurance will be raised. The protection of the rights and interests of those in flexible employment and new employment forms will be strengthened.
Second is enriching the supply of consumer products and services. Efforts will be made to expand the implementation of the "two new" policies by including mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, and fitness bands into the supported categories, while also providing new purchase subsidies for digital products such as phones. This subsidy will be granted to individual consumers who purchase mobile phones, tablets, and smartwatches.
Third is cultivating new growth points in consumption, including continually improving the number of snow and ice venue facilities and public service levels, boosting consumption in this area, and focusing on the diversified needs of the elderly to cultivate potential industries, expanding services like meals for the elderly, household care for the elderly, community convenience, institutional care, thus introducing innovations like smart auxiliary tools, silver-haired special trains, and study tours for the elderly into the lives of more elderly people.
Fourth is improving the consumer environment. The commercial logistics system and cold chain logistics system will be improved to effectively reduce the logistics costs of the whole society. The continuous advancement of the credit system will focus on creating a reassuring consumer environment.
Since last year, China has been continuously promoting trade-in policies to boost consumption. It is expected that the two new policies will further increase and expand this year. Yuan Da, Deputy Secretary-General of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at the meeting that detailed plans for intensifying and expanding the implementation of the two new policies this year will be announced soon, guiding localities to make relevant supporting policies for smooth cross-year connection and stable and orderly transition, striving to achieve greater effectiveness.