The special action plan to boost consumption related to wages, the stock market, childbirth, healthcare, and housing has arrived

On March 16, in order to promote the prosperity of the consumer market, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Special Action Plan for Boosting Consumption," which proposes multiple measures to stimulate consumption.

The following are the key points of the plan:

• Broaden channels for property income and stabilize the stock market through multiple measures. Strengthen the construction of strategic force reserves and market stabilization mechanisms, and accelerate the resolution of bottlenecks for medium- and long-term funds entering the market, such as commercial insurance funds, the National Social Security Fund, basic pension insurance funds, and enterprise (occupational) annuity funds.
• Promote reasonable growth of wage income. Continue to implement the unemployment insurance stable job return policy. Increase employment support in response to changing circumstances and promote employment for key groups. Improve the mechanism for adjusting the minimum wage standard and scientifically and reasonably raise the minimum wage standard.
• Increase support for maternity and childcare. Research and establish a childcare subsidy system. Guide qualified localities to include flexible employment personnel, migrant workers, and new employment form personnel participating in basic medical insurance for employees into maternity insurance.
• Increase support for replacing old consumer goods with new ones, promote the greening and intelligent upgrading of durable consumer goods such as automobiles and home appliances, cultivate the second-hand goods circulation market, and promote consumption upgrades and resource recycling.
• Extend the automotive consumption chain, carry out pilot reforms in automotive circulation consumption, and expand automotive aftermarket consumption such as vehicle modification, leasing, events, and RV camping.
• Timely reduce the interest rate on housing provident fund loans. Expand the scope of housing provident fund usage, support contributors in applying for personal housing loans from the housing provident fund while withdrawing funds for the down payment on a home, increase support for rental withdrawals, and promote pilot work for flexible employment personnel contributions.
• Accelerate the development and application promotion of new technologies and products such as autonomous driving, smart wearables, and ultra-high-definition video, open up new consumption tracks, meet residents' high-quality and diverse consumption needs, and lead the direction of consumption upgrades.
• Strengthen the supporting role of investment in consumption. Increase support for project construction in education, healthcare, skills training, elderly care, childcare, cultural tourism, and sports through central budget investments, addressing shortcomings in public services. Support eligible projects in consumption and cultural tourism to issue Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) in the infrastructure sector.
• Ensure rights to rest and vacation. Strictly implement the paid annual leave system, making the implementation of paid annual leave an important part of trade unions' protection of workers' rights. Encourage combining paid annual leave with short holidays for flexible staggered vacations. Legally protect workers' rights to rest and vacation, and prohibit illegal extensions of working hours. Encourage qualified localities to explore setting spring and autumn breaks for primary and secondary schools based on actual conditions.

The full text of the "Special Action Plan for Boosting Consumption" is as follows:

In order to vigorously boost consumption, comprehensively expand domestic demand, enhance consumption capacity through increasing income and reducing burdens, create effective demand through high-quality supply, and enhance consumption willingness by optimizing the consumption environment, this plan is formulated to address prominent contradictions that restrict consumption.

I. Urban and Rural Residents' Income Increase Promotion Action

(1) Promote reasonable growth of wage income. Implement employment support plans for key areas, key industries, urban and rural grassroots, and small and micro enterprises. Continue to implement the unemployment insurance stable job return policy. Increase employment support efforts in response to changing circumstances and promote employment for key groups. Focus on key areas and groups to carry out special skills training actions, improve the diversified investment mechanism, and ensure the quality of vocational skill level evaluation work. Improve the adjustment mechanism for the minimum wage standard and scientifically and reasonably raise the minimum wage standard. Increase the implementation of labor-for-relief in key engineering projects and the construction of small and medium-sized agricultural and rural infrastructure, and expand the scale of labor remuneration distribution.

(2) Broaden channels for property income. Take multiple measures to stabilize the stock market, strengthen the construction of strategic force reserves and market stabilization mechanisms, accelerate the resolution of bottlenecks for long-term funds such as commercial insurance funds, national social security funds, basic pension insurance funds, and corporate (occupational) annuity funds entering the market, strengthen the market value management of state-owned enterprises and listed companies, and severely crack down on financial fraud in the capital market and illegal reduction of holdings by shareholders of listed companies. Further enrich the variety of bond-related products suitable for individual investors.

(3) Take multiple measures to promote farmers' income growth. Improve the income guarantee mechanism for grain farmers and the distribution mechanism for land appreciation income, and explore ways to activate and utilize legally owned housing by farmers through leasing, equity participation, and cooperation. Implement actions to enhance the income of low-income rural populations, continue to implement the agricultural brand cultivation plan, carry out the "three products and one standard" action for agricultural products, and promote the consumption of green, organic, high-quality, and geographical indication agricultural products. Cultivate new types of agricultural business entities, develop courtyard economy, forest economy, and homestay economy according to local conditions, implement subsidies for the scrapping and updating of agricultural machinery, and strengthen the connection between industries and farmers.

(4) Solidly resolve the issue of overdue payments. Accelerate the implementation of the repayment of overdue payments to enterprises, enforce local government responsibilities, ensure that payments to enterprises, especially small and micro enterprises, are "paid quickly and fully," strengthen audit supervision, enhance credit constraints, and improve the long-term mechanism for clearing debts.

II. Consumer Capacity Guarantee Support Actions

(5) Increase support for childbirth and childcare. Research and establish a childcare subsidy system. Guide qualified localities to include flexible employment personnel, migrant workers, and new employment form personnel participating in basic medical insurance for employees into maternity insurance. Implement a pediatric service annual action and increase the supply of pediatric services. During the peak season for children's seasonal diseases, increase the opening of pediatric outpatient (emergency) services at comprehensive hospitals during the night.

(6) Strengthen educational support. Expand the supply of educational resources for the net inflow of school-age population into urban areas. Increase the subsidy standards for certain student assistance programs by 2025, expand the coverage of policies, and continue to implement the interest-free and principal deferred repayment policy for national student loans. Promote the close alignment of higher education discipline and professional settings with the innovation chain and industrial chain, and improve the adaptability of talent training to the needs of economic and social development.

(7) Improve medical and pension security capabilities. Improve the reasonable adjustment mechanism for basic pension insurance benefits, increase the basic pension for urban and rural residents and the financial subsidy standard for basic medical insurance for urban and rural residents by 2025, and appropriately raise the basic pension for retirees. Fully implement the personal pension system. Promote the removal of household registration restrictions for flexible employment personnel participating in basic pension and medical insurance at their place of employment, and expand the pilot program for occupational injury protection(8) Ensure the basic livelihood of key groups. Strengthen dynamic monitoring and layered classification of low-income populations, promote the improvement of the basic livelihood assistance system, enhance the level of special assistance, and strengthen development-oriented assistance such as industrial employment. Strengthen support for care services for completely disabled elderly individuals. Encourage localities with conditions to provide assistance funds or increase one-time living subsidies to disadvantaged groups based on actual circumstances. Timely and fully disburse unemployment insurance benefits to eligible unemployed individuals.

III. Quality Improvement and Benefit Action for Service Consumption

(9) Optimize the supply of services for the elderly and children. Promote age-friendly renovations across society, support local pilot explorations, and comprehensively advance the installation of elevators in multi-story buildings and the development of meal assistance services for the elderly. Actively develop industries related to anti-aging and silver-haired tourism to unleash the potential of the silver-haired consumption market. Encourage the development of community embedded childcare, employer-sponsored childcare, and integrated childcare services. Support and regulate social forces to develop elderly care and childcare services, and improve the pricing formation mechanism for elderly care services. Encourage localities with conditions to provide venue support and operational subsidies to inclusive childcare institutions based on actual circumstances.

(10) Promote consumption in life services. Strengthen the construction of service supply capacity, support innovation in service consumption scenarios, integration of business formats, and industrial clustering. Enhance the quality of dining services and support local development of specialty dining. Increase training efforts for domestic services, encourage more universities and vocational schools to offer domestic service-related majors, organize and implement special training programs for improving and expanding women's domestic services, and improve the standard specification system and credit system for the domestic service industry. In conjunction with the urban 15-minute convenient living circle and the construction of embedded service facilities in urban communities, accelerate the establishment of community service outlets for shopping, dining, domestic services, and repairs.

(11) Expand cultural, sports, and tourism consumption. Deepen the integration of online and offline, business travel, cultural, and sports consumption across multiple formats, and innovate diverse consumption scenarios. Support tourist attractions and cultural heritage units in expanding service projects, reasonably extending operating hours, and increasing reception capacity. Support localities in increasing the supply of quality sports projects and specialty sports events. Optimize the approval process for commercial performances, sports events, and various large-scale mass activities, safely and controllably increase the number of sellable (issued) tickets, strictly implement the content review responsibility system for the premiere location of touring projects, and promote "one-time approval, nationwide tour."

(12) Promote ice and snow consumption. Launch and implement an ice and snow tourism enhancement plan, organize promotional activities such as ice and snow consumption seasons, build a number of high-quality tourism attractions and resorts themed around ice and snow, and support regions rich in ice and snow resources to build globally renowned high-quality ice and snow tourism destinations. Encourage localities to enrich the supply of ice and snow venues and consumption products based on time and place.

(13) Develop inbound consumption. Gradually expand the scope of countries with unilateral visa exemptions and optimize regional inbound visa exemption policies. Launch more high-quality inbound tourism routes and services, improve the convenience of foreign tourists traveling in China, and cultivate international markets such as medical care and exhibitions. Deepen the cultivation and construction of international consumer center cities. Support the establishment of duty-free shops at qualified city ports. Support more quality merchants to become tax refund shops for outbound tourists and promote "immediate purchase, immediate refund" services for shopping tax refunds.

(14) Steadily advance the expansion of openness in the service industry. Expand pilot projects for openness in telecommunications, medical care, education, and other fields. Focus on the upgrading needs of resident consumption, promote the import of high-quality lifestyle services such as medical health and cultural entertainment. Promote the inclusion of service consumption items such as camping, homestays, property services, and "Internet + medical care" in the encouraged foreign investment industry catalog

4. Bulk Consumption Update and Upgrade Action

(15) Increase support for the replacement of old consumer goods with new ones. Make good use of ultra-long-term special government bond funds to support local governments in expanding the implementation of the replacement of old consumer goods with new ones, promoting the greening and intelligent upgrading of bulk durable consumer goods such as automobiles, home appliances, and home decoration, supporting the purchase of qualified and safe electric bicycles, and implementing subsidies for the purchase of three types of digital products: mobile phones, tablets, and smartwatches (bracelets). Promote the construction of pilot projects for the circulation of second-hand goods, cultivate diversified entities for the circulation of second-hand goods, and innovate the circulation methods of second-hand goods.

(16) Better meet housing consumption needs. Continue to promote the stabilization of the real estate market, intensify the renovation of urban villages and dilapidated houses, and fully release the potential of rigid and improved housing demand. Allow special bonds to support urban governments in acquiring existing commercial housing for use as affordable housing. Implement tax policies that promote the stable and healthy development of the real estate market. Timely reduce housing provident fund loan interest rates. Expand the scope of housing provident fund usage, support contributors in applying for personal housing loans from the housing provident fund while withdrawing funds for down payments, increase support for rental withdrawals, and promote pilot work for flexible employment contributors.

(17) Extend the automotive consumption chain. Carry out pilot reforms in automotive circulation consumption, expand automotive aftermarket consumption such as modifications, rentals, events, and RV camping. Cultivate and strengthen the entities engaged in second-hand car operations, and continue to implement facilitation measures such as "reverse invoicing" for second-hand car sales and registration for cross-regional transactions. Strengthen information sharing in the automotive field, support the development of third-party second-hand car information query platforms, and promote safe and convenient transactions of second-hand cars.

5. Consumption Quality Improvement Action

(18) Strengthen the leading role of consumption brands. Focus on service sectors such as commerce, logistics, and cultural tourism, and develop policies to improve service quality in a classified manner, creating more Chinese service brands. Integrate excellent traditional Chinese culture into product design, support the development of original intellectual property (IP) brands, promote consumption in animation, games, e-sports, and related derivatives, and explore the domestic and international incremental markets for "trendy" domestic products. Promote the launch economy in a localized manner, encouraging high-quality domestic and foreign goods and service brands to open their first stores and hold their first launches, showcases, and exhibitions. Support the promotion of new business formats and models in consumption. Organize a series of "Buy in China" activities to create a lineup of famous Chinese consumer products.

(19) Support the accelerated development of new consumption. Deeply implement the digital consumption enhancement action, vigorously cultivate quality e-commerce. Carry out the "Artificial Intelligence +" action to promote "Artificial Intelligence + consumption," accelerate the development and application promotion of new technologies and products such as autonomous driving, smart wearables, ultra-high-definition video, brain-computer interfaces, robots, and additive manufacturing, and open up new high-growth consumption tracks. Carry out special actions for healthy consumption. Accelerate the improvement of the low-altitude economy regulatory system, orderly develop low-altitude tourism, aviation sports, and consumer-grade drones. Continuously enrich cruise routes and tourism products, and promote the facilitation of yacht registration and reporting.

(20) Improve the level of integration between domestic and foreign trade. Promote the integration of systems such as domestic and foreign trade standard certification. Support foreign trade products in expanding domestic sales, carry out the "Chinese Tour of Foreign Trade Quality Products" activity, and guide foreign trade OEM enterprises to accelerate the cultivation of independent brands. Implement domestic trade credit insurance policies to support the integration of domestic and foreign trade

6. Actions to Improve the Consumption Environment

(21) Ensure Rights to Rest and Leave. Strictly implement the paid annual leave system, making the execution of paid annual leave an important aspect of trade unions safeguarding workers' rights. Local party committee organization departments and human resources and social security departments should strengthen regular supervision of the implementation of rest and leave systems in various units, and focus on supervising the implementation of paid annual leave. Encourage the combination of paid annual leave with short holidays to achieve flexible staggered leave. Legally protect workers' rights to rest and leave, and do not unlawfully extend workers' working hours. Encourage qualified localities to explore the establishment of spring and autumn breaks for primary and secondary schools based on actual conditions.

(22) Create a Safe Consumption Environment. Implement a three-year action plan to optimize the consumption environment, further improve quality standards, credit constraints, comprehensive governance, and consumer rights protection systems. Improve the standard system for consumer goods and services, strengthen the construction of credit systems in the consumption field, establish a diversified dispute resolution mechanism for consumption disputes, and promote more efficient consumer rights protection methods. Regulate unreasonable business practices such as "lowest price on the entire network" in online sales and live streaming sales, advocate for fair pricing and quality, and legally crack down on the sale of counterfeit and inferior products, strengthening the supervision of defective product recalls. Deepen the governance of layered television fees and complex operations.

(23) Improve Urban and Rural Consumption Facilities. Deeply implement the county-level commercial construction action and the "thousand markets and ten thousand stores" renovation and upgrading, strengthen the construction of county-level logistics distribution centers and rural terminal logistics distribution facilities. Actively develop smart business circles, immersive experience spaces, etc., and promote the transformation of traditional department stores and other physical stores into new commercial venues. Increase support for operational activity venues, public transportation capacity, temporary parking spaces, etc., in areas with concentrated nighttime consumption.

7. Actions to Clean Up and Optimize Restrictive Measures

(24) Gradually Reduce Consumption Restrictions. All regions and relevant departments should combine actual conditions to promptly clean up unreasonable restrictions on consumption, avoiding "one-size-fits-all" and layered increases. Promote the shift from purchase management to usage management for consumption such as automobiles, ensuring that families without cars who have been "stuck in the queue for a long time" can meet their car purchase needs. Guide localities to orderly carry out traditional folk consumption activities. Ensure that various business entities can equally participate in social group procurement, and do not set procurement thresholds in disguised forms such as ownership and merchant ratings.

(25) Continuously Optimize the Business Environment. Improve the management model of the negative list for market access, focusing on environmental protection, hygiene, security, quality inspection, and fire safety, and deeply clean up and rectify various market access barriers to create a stable, fair, transparent, and predictable market environment. Encourage regions to simplify approval processes for promotional activities, community markets, outdoor displays, and signage facilities, implementing online reporting and immediate processing. Enhance the efficiency of regulatory inspections through cross-departmental collaboration, ensuring that there is no disruption to public consumption venues without cause.

8. Improve Support Policies

(26) Strengthen the Coordination and Linkage of Consumption Promotion Policies. Reform and improve the system and mechanism for promoting consumption, establish and effectively utilize a work mechanism for assessing the consistency of macro policy orientations, strengthen the coordination of fiscal, financial, industrial, investment, and consumption policies, promote joint efforts, and form a synergy to build a more favorable policy system for promoting consumption(27) Strengthen the supporting role of investment in consumption. Better coordinate investment and consumption, expand effective investment in consumption infrastructure, enhance consumption service functions, and promote new consumption formats and models, driving a virtuous cycle of improved investment efficiency and expanded consumption upgrades. Increase support for project construction in education, healthcare, skills training, elderly care, childcare, cultural tourism, and sports through central budget investments, addressing shortcomings in public services. Support eligible projects in consumption and cultural tourism to issue Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) in the infrastructure sector.

(28) Leverage the guiding role of fiscal policy. Utilize fiscal subsidies, loan interest discounts, and other policy tools to focus on key areas and implement precise measures, combining consumption promotion with improving people's livelihoods and addressing shortcomings, expanding consumption demand, enhancing consumption capacity, and better playing the positive role of consumption in facilitating the national economic cycle and driving economic growth.

(29) Strengthen credit support. Encourage financial institutions to increase personal consumption loan issuance under controllable risk conditions, reasonably set consumption loan limits, terms, and interest rates. Support financial institutions in optimizing personal consumption loan repayment methods according to market-oriented and rule-of-law principles, and orderly carry out loan renewal work. In 2025, provide fiscal interest discounts for eligible personal consumption loans and loans to service industry entities in the consumption sector.

(30) Improve supporting measures for consumption. Encourage trade unions at all levels to use funds for holiday gifts, employee fitness, cultural and sports consumption, etc. Strengthen consumption assistance and enhance precise matching of production and sales. Explore the implementation of prize invoice activities. Improve statistical monitoring of service consumption and new consumption formats and models, strengthen regional statistics on online retail sales of physical goods, and enhance the comprehensive consumption statistical system.

All regions and departments should prioritize boosting consumption, fulfill their responsibilities according to their divisions of labor, strengthen collaborative efforts, improve working mechanisms, explore practical measures tailored to local conditions, accelerate the formation of a collaborative work force, stabilize market expectations, and effectively promote the implementation of various policies and measures to boost consumption more quickly and effectively