Stimulating shopping key priority

China on Monday released its first five-year plan dedicated exclusively to expanding consumption, marking a significant upgrade in the top-level design for buoying domestic consumption.

With consumption having grown into the primary engine of China's economic growth, the plan is set to reinforce this momentum by unlocking the full potential of the country's super-large market, optimizing the consumption structure and improving people's livelihoods via targeted measures.

These efforts, while domestic in nature, also carry profound implications beyond China's borders, potentially reshaping global trade patterns and creating new opportunities for foreign companies, analysts said.

The dedicated five-year plan (2026-30) set a goal of raising total retail sales of consumer goods to around 60 trillion yuan ($8.8 trillion) by 2030 and further strengthening consumption's role in driving economic growth.

The target comes after China's retail sales of consumer goods crossed the 50-trillion-yuan mark for the first time in 2025, underlining the increasing importance of consumption in supporting the growth of the world's second-largest economy.

Consumption expansion used to be provisions attached to the national five-year plans, serving as supporting or phased arrangements, said Fu Yifu, a researcher at Jiangsu Su Merchants Bank.

"This is the first time the country has formulated a special five-year plan solely for expanding consumption, marking a breakthrough in the country's top-level design," Fu said.

Under China's five-year plan framework, dedicated plans are the operational tools that convert macroeconomic blueprints into measurable, sector-specific action plans.

"The dedicated plans translate the macroeconomic blueprint of the 15th Five-Year Plan into specific indicators and task lists. With the rollout of these dedicated plans, China's 15th Five-Year Plan is entering the stage of 'full-scale construction'," said Xiao Hongwei, a researcher at the State Information Center under the National Development and Reform Commission.

While consumption already contributed 52 percent to China's GDP growth in 2025, its potential has yet to be fully unleashed, analysts said.

Liu Rihong, an official with the Research Office of the State Council, said that expanding consumption not only builds resilience against external shocks, but also transforms the nation's market advantages into better lives for its people.

A distinctive feature of the plan is its emphasis on boosting consumption that improves people's welfare, with targeted support for eldercare, childcare, culture and tourism, and health services — aiming to raise the quality of life through high-quality supply, enhanced platforms and stronger support mechanisms, said NDRC officials.

Huang Yiping, dean of Peking University's National School of Development, pointed to a gap between China's strong manufacturing sector and its still-maturing domestic consumption, which stems from several structural hurdles, including high household saving rates and local governments' preference for soliciting investment and building infrastructure over boosting consumption.

The consumption-focused plan outlines 28 key tasks across six crucial areas — including upgrading services consumption and boosting spending power — to tackle these hurdles on multiple fronts.

To improve consumption capability, it called for stabilizing employment, raising minimum wages and increasing property income via various channels.

To reassure consumers and lower precautionary savings, the plan emphasized improving the social security system and boosting public spending on education, healthcare and eldercare to reduce household burdens.

The document also pledged to optimize the overall consumer environment and remove unreasonable restrictions that have long suppressed spending.

Services consumption featured prominently in the roadmap. The plan called for steadily raising the share of per capita services consumption expenditure, with targeted support for eldercare, childcare, culture and tourism, health and sports services.

China has recently seen several bright spots in services consumption, including its booming tourism sector that is attracting more youngsters and overseas visitors. In 2025, China's tourism economy grew 9.9 percent, more than double the global average.

XINHUA-CHINA DAILY