China unveils measures to boost consumer spending, foreign investment

BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) — Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Monday presided over a State Council executive meeting that outlined measures to boost domestic consumption and approved an action plan to stabilize foreign investment in 2025.

The meeting called for strong support to increase household incomes, promote reasonable wage growth, broaden property-related income channels, and enhance consumption capacities.

It emphasized the importance of focusing on consumption sectors with a strong spillover effect and large growth potential to tap into consumption potential.

It also highlighted the importance of expanding consumption in the culture, sports and tourism sectors, of promoting consumption in the snow-and-ice industry, of developing inbound tourism consumption, and of strengthening support for China’s consumer goods trade-in program.

The meeting also noted that foreign enterprises play an important role in job creation, export stabilization and industrial upgrading, and urged more practical, effective measures to stabilize existing foreign investment and expand new investment.

It called for the optimization of a comprehensive services sector opening-up pilot program and the expansion of industries that encourage foreign investment.

It encouraged foreign capital to undertake equity investment in China, and urged efforts to optimize rules and procedures for foreign mergers and acquisitions.

The meeting stressed the need for domestic and foreign enterprises to be treated equally in government procurement, as well as the need to broaden financing channels for foreign enterprises.

Efforts should be made to promote the removal of outdated or inefficient production capacities, and to increase high-end capacities, according to the meeting.

It discussed and approved in principle a draft law on national development planning, and decided to submit the draft to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress for deliberation.