China to further promote healthy consumption structure

The State Council released an action plan (2018-2020) on improving China's consumption mechanism to further stimulate the vitality of domestic consumers.

According to the circular issued on Oct 11, the consumption structure should be improved from six aspects — further relaxing market access in the service and consumption sectors, improving policy systems to upgrade non-service consumption, establishing product and service standards in key fields, building a credit system for consumption, optimizing supportive fiscal measures for consumption, and strengthening consumption promotion and information guidance.

Market access should be relaxed in several service-related fields, including tourism, culture, sports, healthcare, elderly care, domestic service, and education and training.

In tourism, an action plan should be introduced to open up an international tourism consumption center in Hainan, and the results should be expanded to the application of free-entry policy for foreign tourists.

In the healthcare and elder care sectors, any allocation plan of equipment purchases for medical institutions should be approved if qualifications are met, and licenses or permits will no longer be a precondition for registering nursing homes.

For education, private schools and extracurricular training institutions should be further promoted and regulated.

Consumption structure of the non-service sector such as rental market, vehicle purchases, green and information consumption should be upgraded through establishing an appraisal system for the rental market, continuing preferential tax measures on NEV purchases, better recognizing green products, and further lowering internet fees, with higher speed and speed-up process of commercial application of 5G.

The document also called for formulating standards for consumer goods and services and building Chinese brands with international influence.

Sharing and openness of credit information are urged in order to improve the credit system. Financial and tax support is also stressed in the circular to enhance personal consumption.

In addition, it also required improving statistics and monitoring, and big data application in consumption.