The Central Economic Work Conference held in Beijing on December 10-11, 2025, set the priorities for 2026, with expanding domestic demand and building a strong domestic market topping the list of key tasks. The plans emphasize stronger, more targeted measures to boost consumption, including specific initiatives to drive spending on goods and services.

To implement these priorities, central ministries and local governments are introducing new or enhanced policies to stimulate consumer spending and providing momentum for economic growth in the coming year.

This year is the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period, and its development will impact China's overall modernization process. The main factors affecting the Chinese economy at present come from changes in the external environment. However, the more complex and severe the external environment, the more necessary it becomes to expand domestic demand and strengthen the domestic market by promoting consumption, which serves as the main engine and stabilizer of economic growth, as well as a barometer of people's wellbeing.

Nationwide, authorities are intensifying efforts to stabilize employment, raise incomes and strengthen social safety nets. This focus aims to increase people's ability and willingness to spend while cultivating and expanding the domestic consumer market. In parallel, the government is improving consumption quality and capacity—for instance, by refining trade-in policies and fostering new consumption hotspots.

The country's per-capita gross national income is now within the range of $10,000-20,000, a benchmark for a nation's middle- to upper-middle-income status. The consumption structure is shifting from being dominated by the consumption of goods to consumption in both goods and services, and upgrading from meeting survival-oriented need to meeting development-oriented need. Services spending is growing faster than spending on goods. Digital consumption, green consumption and health consumption are becoming new consumption hotspots. These changes set the pace for China's consumption market.

Past experience demonstrates that China's policies aimed at stimulating consumption, along with its innovation-driven consumption model, will generate strong growth in consumer demand and contribute to economic expansion.

Looking ahead, China's consumer market is poised for even greater breakthroughs. It will not only play an increasingly pivotal role in driving China's own economic growth but also act as a key engine for the global consumer market.