With a renewed focus on expanding demand this year, China has revamped its consumer products trade-in programme, and doubled down on its subsidy scheme, resulting in a significant uptick in sales of automobiles, home appliances and electronics.
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As a key part of its top policy priority to stimulate domestic consumption and drive economic growth, the leadership vowed to “do everything possible” to boost consumer spending and energise key industries to shore up the nation’s long-term economic recovery.
The subsidy scheme, extended at the beginning of this year, provides rebates for a range of digital products, including smartphones, tablets and smartwatches – a 15 per cent subsidy for purchases of the three categories of products that cost under 6,000 yuan (US$828).
The subsidy is capped at 500 yuan for each purchase, and consumers can enjoy the price reduction for only one item per product category.
As of Wednesday, more than 26.7 million consumers had applied for these subsidies, with a significant uptake also seen in purchases of electric vehicles and electric bikes, where trade-in programmes have also been introduced, according to the Ministry of Commerce.
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Driven by the initiatives, related industries have seen rapid growth, with nationwide scrapping of old vehicles up by around 35 per cent, year on year, and retail sales of new-energy passenger vehicles surging by more than 20 per cent.