Govt stimulus spurs domestic consumption
- Source: Global Times
- [01:31 December 02 2009]
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By Li Qiaoyi
The Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) announced at a press conference Tuesday that consumer spending has made major strides this year due to favorable policies especially in the auto and home appliance markets.
Consumption contributed 4 percentage points to the 7.7 GDP growth in the first three quarters, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Spurring consumption has become one of the government's top priorities, and now it is paying more attention to the quality and structure of economic growth, said Lu Zhengwei, a senior economist at Industrial Bank.
Lu said the portion consumption makes up of GDP should further rise next year, as the country will foster spending rather than put money into infrastructure, as this year's stimulus package did.
One of the main drivers of the recent uptick in consumer spending has been auto sales.
The country's auto market, which passed the US this year to become the world's largest, was boosted by a series of policies aimed particularly at increasing sales of low-emission vehicles.
The rapid growth of the domestic auto market is expected to extend into next year, as the stimulus measures are likely to continue, stated Chang Xiaocun, director of the Department of Market System Development of MOFCOM.
Total car sales are expected to reach 13 million units for the whole year, compared with 9.38 million last year, Dong Yang, executive deputy president of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said last month.
There are still about 18 million high-emission vehicles in China that need to be replaced by fuel-efficient automobiles, which means demand will stay strong for the next several years, said Chang.
