How does the market guarantee supply？ How to promote holiday consumption？ -Multi-sectoral interpretation of measures to promote consumption during the Spring Festival

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, February 6th Question: How does the market guarantee supply? How to promote holiday consumption? -Multi-sectoral interpretation of measures to promote consumption during the Spring Festival

Xinhua News Agency reporter Wei Hongyi

The Spring Festival is the traditional peak season for consumption. At the press conference of the State Council Office held on the 6th, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the State Sports General Administration and other departments introduced relevant information and answered reporters’ questions on ensuring the supply of the Spring Festival market and promoting holiday consumption.

The national consumer market was stable and orderly before the holiday.

Sheng Qiuping, Vice Minister of Commerce, said that on the occasion of the Spring Festival in year of the loong, commercial departments at all levels continued to improve various measures to strengthen the production, marketing and supply of people’s livelihood commodities during the festival. Generally speaking, the operation of the pre-holiday consumer market presents the following three characteristics:

Sufficient supply. Large-scale wholesale markets of agricultural and sideline products around the country have sufficient stocks of daily necessities such as grain, oil, meat, eggs, milk, fruits and vegetables, and the stocking of daily necessities in key wholesale markets and supermarkets is 10% to 30% higher than usual. Major e-commerce platforms continue to provide distribution services during the Spring Festival.

The price is stable. Relevant statistics on February 5th show that the average wholesale prices of grain, edible oil, beef and mutton in 100 large-scale agricultural and sideline products wholesale markets in China have remained stable since the beginning of February, and vegetable prices have shown a seasonal increase.

Sales are booming. With the growing flavor of the year, major shopping malls, supermarkets and online platforms have ushered in sales peaks. In late January, the sales of retail enterprises monitored by the Ministry of Commerce increased by 19.9% month-on-month. In January, sales of key monitoring e-commerce platforms increased by 20% year-on-year.

Ensuring that the supply in the holiday market is not out of stock and uninterrupted is the key point of ensuring the supply and price stability in the market. In terms of strengthening the construction of the system of ensuring the supply of daily necessities, Xu Xingfeng, director of the Department of Market Operation and Consumption Promotion of the Ministry of Commerce, said that the Ministry of Commerce will constantly improve the three networks of "monitoring, dispatching and storage" to keep abreast of the basic situation of the production, circulation and consumption of key varieties of daily necessities, improve the emergency response capability, increase the commercial inventory according to the times and circumstances, and ensure that the reserved commodities are "adequately stored, transferred and used".

Multi-departmental measures to promote consumption during the Spring Festival

With the change of people’s lifestyle, China’s consumer market presents many new features. Xu Xingfeng said that these characteristics mainly include four aspects: more pursuit of green health, more prominent personality diversity, more prominent cultural characteristics, and more favor for scientific and technological intelligence.

Based on these characteristics, many departments have launched targeted measures to promote consumption-

The Ministry of Commerce promotes the linkage between urban and rural markets, online and offline, and jointly organizes online Chinese New Year Festival, "Happy Shopping in Rural Areas" and other activities, and organizes a series of activities such as sales promotion, rural tourism, skill display and cultural communication, and carries out a series of thematic activities around new consumption such as digital, green and health.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism organizes cultural and tourism activities on the theme of "Happy New Year". Miao Muyang, Director of the Industrial Development Department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, said that related activities include launching a special program of "Literary China" in the Spring Festival, launching a series of "Village Evening" exhibition projects in conjunction with various localities, and launching a series of special courses, boutique routes and theme activities for study tours to make the festival more festive and cheerful.

Wang Xiaopeng, head of the Sports Economics Department of the State Sports General Administration, said that the State Sports General Administration will focus on the consumption characteristics of "green health" and do a good job in deepening the integration of business travel, culture and sports through a series of events of the "outdoor sports vitality landscape" action plan.

Continue to meet the consumer demand of the people

Sheng Qiuping said that the Ministry of Commerce has designated 2024 as the "Year of Consumption Promotion". The Ministry of Commerce will adhere to the "policy and activity" two-wheel drive, run a series of consumption promotion activities well, and introduce more policy measures to promote consumption from post-epidemic recovery to continuous expansion.

Sheng Qiuping introduced that the Ministry of Commerce will achieve "there are themes in the season, there are activities in the month, and there are scenes in the week". Four major theme activities will be held throughout the year, and 12 key activities will be carried out, including a series of activities such as the National Consumption Promotion Month and the International Consumption Season. Optimize consumption supply and innovate consumption scenarios to fully meet the diversified consumption needs of ordinary people.

In addition, around the goal of actively cultivating the consumption growth point of domestic products, the Ministry of Commerce will focus on time-honored brands and organize a series of activities to promote the consumption of domestic products. At the same time, taking the pedestrian street as the carrier, we will guide the pedestrian streets, business districts, and quarter-hour convenient living circles around the country to combine the peak consumption season and strengthen the promotion of domestic "trendy products" according to local conditions.

Wang Xiaopeng said that in order to promote the quality and efficiency of the ice and snow industry and meet the diversified consumption needs of the people, the State Sports General Administration will hold high-level competitions and accelerate the improvement of ice and snow services to provide more and better quality services for the people to participate in ice and snow sports.

In view of the phenomenon that culture and tourism consumption have continued to be hot since New Year’s Day in 2024, Miao Muyang concluded that it is necessary to persist in exerting efforts at both ends of supply and demand, promote overall planning, strengthen the construction of a service-oriented government, and adhere to the concept of sharing between host and guest. It is necessary to expand the supply of high-quality products to meet the consumer demand of the masses, innovate products and services in line with the consumer demand of the masses, consolidate the guarantee system of cultural and tourism policies and systems, standardize and rectify the order of cultural and tourism markets, and improve the supply quality and service level of cultural tourism.