The proposal for the "16th Five-Year Plan" positions "persisting in expanding domestic demand" as a strategic foundation, emphasizing the need to "vigorously boost consumption" and "use new demand to guide new supply, and new supply to create new demand, promoting a virtuous cycle between consumption and investment, and between supply and demand." New consumption models serve as the core vehicle for new demand and an important manifestation of new supply, acting as a new engine for domestic demand growth. Accelerating the development of new consumption is conducive to vigorously stimulating consumption, fostering positive interaction between new supply and new demand, and meeting the people's growing needs for a better life.
The connotation and main characteristics of new consumption models are defined by their foundation in the innovation and application of a new generation of technologies such as the internet, digital technology, and artificial intelligence, forming new consumer behaviors and methods based on new technologies, new business formats, new models, and new scenarios. These models are the product of the deep integration of the digital economy and the upgrading of residents' consumption demands, breaking through the time, space, and form limitations of traditional consumption.
In terms of consumption channels, new consumption relies on online platforms like e-commerce sites and mobile applications, shattering temporal and spatial constraints and allowing consumers to shop, entertain, and learn anytime, anywhere. Regarding consumption content, it encompasses emerging fields such as digital products, smart products, and green services, featuring a rich variety of new business formats, models, scenarios, products, and services. From the perspective of consumer relationships, new consumption utilizes social networks and big data analytics to achieve deep interaction and precise matching between consumers and businesses, enabling merchants to quickly understand preferences and offer personalized products and services.
New consumption models possess five core characteristics: high integration, technology empowerment, scenario richness, experiential focus, and ecological sustainability.
The first characteristic is high integration. New consumption promotes the extension of internet platform companies into the offline world, while traditional offline businesses undergo digital transformation to develop personalized customization and flexible production, driving the deep integration and coordinated linkage of online and offline consumption. Furthermore, it fosters the tight fusion of the internet with various consumption formats, promoting the high-level integration and innovation of new business models, scenarios, products, and services. For instance, new consumption scenarios not only include physical spaces like streets, scenic spots, commercial centers, parks, and areas for dining, cultural performances, and intangible cultural heritage, but also leverage digital technologies like AI to create virtual consumption spaces, achieving a high degree of integration between the virtual and real, and online and offline. This integration of multiple formats and scenarios provides consumers with more personalized, diverse, and intelligent experiences.
The second characteristic is technology empowerment. New consumption fully utilizes big data and AI to optimize consumption processes, and employs technologies like VR and AR to advance the digital transformation of consumption fields and scenarios. Digital technology permeates the entire consumption chain, with technological innovation serving as the core driver for the development and upgrading of new consumption. Examples include using AI for precision marketing and personalized recommendations to enhance matching efficiency and meet specific consumer needs. The Internet of Things enables traceability management for fresh produce, while VR/AR technologies create immersive cultural and tourism experiences. The digitization and intellectualization of the consumption process bring consumers more convenient, intelligent, and novel experiences, promoting the transformation and upgrading of consumption formats.
The third characteristic is scenario richness. Innovation is key to new consumption, and a crucial aspect of this is creating diverse consumption scenarios. In recent years, a large number of influential and highly visible new consumption scenarios have been cultivated around traditional and service consumption related to residents' daily lives. By strengthening cross-border integration across commerce, culture, tourism, sports, health, and transportation, immersive, experiential, and interactive new consumption scenarios have been greatly expanded. These new scenarios cover multiple areas including dining, cultural-tourism-sports, shopping, major commodity purchases, health-elderly care-childcare, and community service consumption. They encompass both natural and residential cultural-tourism sites and modern urban多元化 spaces, incorporating both the inheritance and display of intangible cultural heritage, traditional culture, and red culture, as well as new cultural consumption formats involving digital, environmental, charitable, Linpan, and "Guochao" elements, offering rich and varied content.
The fourth characteristic is experiential focus. As residents' incomes rise and consumption concepts evolve, consumers increasingly prioritize personalized, distinctive, and intelligent multi-layered consumption experiences, with the "new generation" particularly emphasizing experience and individuality. New consumption breaks traditional boundaries, delves into unique advantages, historical culture, and smart technology, and integrates elements like dining, culture, tourism, shopping, and entertainment to enhance consumer participation, interaction, and the quality of novel experiences. Immersive, deep experiences not only provide material satisfaction and psychological novelty but also foster emotional resonance and identification. Socialization within consumption scenarios is also becoming richer, as consumers connect through shared interests, form communities, strengthen social bonds, and enhance their sense of participation and belonging.
The fifth characteristic is ecological sustainability. As ecological civilization and green consumption become trends, healthy and green products and services are increasingly favored, with consumer decisions reflecting green理念. New consumption actively incorporates low-carbon, environmentally friendly, and healthy consumption concepts, steering consumption towards greening and low-carbon development. For example, the deep penetration of green consumption理念 is evident from the普及of new energy vehicles to the rise of second-hand trading platforms, from the application of biodegradable packaging to the development of the sharing economy. New consumption meets demand while considering environmental friendliness, promoting the普及and practice of sustainable consumption patterns.
The pathways for accelerating the development of new consumption during the "16th Five-Year Plan" period are critical. This period urgently requires elevating new consumption from a focus on format innovation to a national strategic level. The core objective is to activate the potential of domestic demand through new consumption, providing short-term support for the current economic recovery while cultivating long-term momentum for achieving the 2035 goals. It is essential to further unleash the dual effects of "consumption upgrading + industrial transformation," injecting sustained vitality into the modernization drive and meeting the people's growing needs for a better life.
First, deepen supply-side structural reforms to cultivate new drivers for consumption. In the realm of goods consumption, focus on green, digital, and smart consumption as core levers, accelerating the construction of high-quality consumer goods supply systems for items like new energy vehicles, green appliances, and smart home devices. Vigorously promote initiatives to "increase variety, enhance quality, and create brands," support product智能化upgrades and绿色iterations, fully implement the "same line, same standard, same quality" for domestic and foreign trade products, and enrich customized and personalized supply options. In the service consumption sector, prioritize improving quality and expanding capacity in basic areas like catering, accommodation, domestic services, and elderly care-childcare, while simultaneously stimulating vitality in improvement-oriented areas like culture-entertainment, tourism-sports, and medical-health. Expand the supply of high-quality services and support innovation in service consumption scenarios, format integration, and industrial agglomeration. Improve service standards in key areas such as elderly care, domestic services, culture-tourism, and finance, implement dynamic monitoring and evaluation systems for service quality, and encourage third-party platforms to enhance consumer evaluation and feedback mechanisms, ensuring service consumption is "standard-based and evaluable."
Second, increase household income through multiple channels to pull the new engine of consumption. One approach is to promote reasonable growth in wage income. Stabilize and expand employment through measures like tax and fee reductions and optimizing the business environment to help enterprises and ease difficulties, thereby securing stable growth in wage income. Another is to broaden channels for property income. Promote the healthy development of the stock market, standardize the development of bond, fund, trust, and other markets, and provide more diversified investment channels. Take practical measures to stabilize the property and stock markets, using this "dual stability" to quickly stabilize household expectations for property income and boost consumer willingness. Additionally, employ multiple measures to increase farmers' income. Effectively advance comprehensive rural revitalization and implement actions to enhance the capabilities and incomes of low-income rural groups. Continuously implement the agricultural brand cultivation plan and the "three products and one standard" action for agricultural products, promoting the consumption of green, organic, specialty, high-quality, new, and geographical indication agricultural products.
Third, improve new types of infrastructure to expand new frontiers for consumption. Advance the construction of new urban information technology infrastructure, optimize the foundational environment for digital technology application, and promote the use of 5G technology in more consumption scenarios like intelligent transportation and telemedicine. Accelerate the digital transformation of service providers in new consumption fields and support market-oriented service institutions in developing digital service resources. Establish a national data sharing platform system to provide public data support for new consumption areas like education, healthcare, culture, and tourism. Speed up the application of new technologies and equipment, promoting the use of digital technologies in healthcare, education, elderly care, tourism, and other fields, and accelerate the digital transformation of service facilities like hospitals, schools, and elderly care institutions. Promote the construction of digital communities by integrating commercial, medical, educational, and other resources within communities, enabling intelligent management and remote monitoring of community facilities, and enhancing the level of community digital management. Optimize the layout of logistics infrastructure networks, encourage the application of intelligent warehousing, sorting, and delivery technologies, and improve the delivery efficiency of logistics enterprises. Strengthen the construction of fresh product cold chain logistics systems to ensure the quality and safety of perishable goods.
Fourth, accelerate digital-intelligent驱动to create new consumption scenarios. Increase R&D efforts in new-generation information technologies and promote the integrated development of AI, IoT, big data, blockchain, and other technologies. Carry out the "AI+" initiative, promote "AI+consumption," and support the development of intelligent products like autonomous vehicles, smart wearables, smart home devices, virtual fitting rooms, ultra-high-definition video, and medical robots to meet consumer demand for high-quality, intelligent living. Drive the digital upgrade of lifestyle services, build new formats like smart business districts and unmanned retail, and develop new models such as "internet+healthcare" and digital education; encourage the standardized development of live-streaming e-commerce and social e-commerce, and tap the potential of lower-tier markets. Simultaneously, establish information consumption experience centers, pilot AR/VR shopping scenarios, reduce service costs through technological means, and expand the supply of inclusive consumption.
Fifth, promote urban-rural integration to拓展new consumption spaces. Strengthen the construction of new consumption infrastructure in rural areas, improve network coverage and quality, perfect the rural logistics and delivery system, and solve the "last mile" problem for rural consumption. Encourage e-commerce platforms to set up service stations in rural areas, train rural residents to use these platforms for shopping and selling agricultural products, facilitate the flow of agricultural products to cities and industrial goods to the countryside, and unleash rural consumption potential. Leverage county-specific characteristics and resource advantages to cultivate distinctive consumption industries. For instance, counties with historical and cultural heritage can develop cultural tourism consumption; those rich in agricultural resources can develop agricultural product processing experiences and rural leisure tourism, guiding the development of new consumption at the county level and narrowing the urban-rural consumption gap.
Sixth, strengthen policy coordination to upgrade the new consumption ecosystem. Simplify the licensing processes for entities operating in new consumption, reduce approval steps, and improve administrative efficiency.健全the standard systems for related products, technologies, and services in the new consumption field, and strengthen intellectual property protection. Increase the intensity of online real-time supervision and offline law enforcement, expedite the introduction of laws and regulations for areas like live-streaming, the sharing economy, and social media shopping, and effectively protect the rights of new consumers. Design specialized financial support for areas like health consumption and green appliances, establish service industry development funds, and assist enterprises in their digital transformation. Support financial institutions in focusing on key consumption scenarios like "food, housing, transportation, travel, shopping, entertainment, and healthcare," and effectively enhance the compatibility of various payment methods including cash, bank cards, mobile payments, and digital yuan. Strengthen the integration of industry and education to cultivate skilled talent and address labor shortages in sectors like domestic services and nursing.健全the consumption statistical monitoring system to dynamically track new consumption trends, ensure policies are precisely adapted to market demand, and promote sustainable consumption growth.
(By Zhang Enbi, Professor at the China Western Economic Research Institute, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, and concurrently Standing Deputy Secretary-General of the Consumption Economics Society; Li Weixiao, Graduate Student at the China Western Economic Research Institute, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics)
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