State Council discusses ways to boost consumption

On Wednesday, Premier Li Qiang chaired a State Council executive meeting focused on boosting "domestic circulation."

Some context: Domestic circulation is one of two key components of Xi Jinping’s 2020 Dual Circulation Strategy (DCS) – a framework that positions domestic demand as the primary growth driver in order to increase resilience to external shocks.

• Li last talked about this topic at a May State Council meeting.

Li used Wednesday's meeting to remind officials that it’s uber important to boost consumption, including by:

• Removing restrictions that limit household consumption
• Refining the consumer goods trade-in program
• Improving policy precision and government coordination

Get smart: This meeting readout may be drier than a saltine cracker – but don’t be deceived.

• Despite the terse readout, it’s likely Li and co. got down to brass tacks when chatting about how to boost consumption.

What we‘re looking out for: Any consumption-boosting measures that government agencies may release in the coming weeks.

In particular, we’re interested to see:

• Whether the trade-in program will expand to cover a broader range of products,
• Whether the government will start subsidizing services
• Whether house purchase restrictions in tier-one cities will be eased further