CCTV News: On the afternoon of March 25, the Ministry of Commerce held a special press conference. The relevant person in charge said that with the continued efforts of various consumption expansion policies and measures, the overall consumer market will continue to show a stable development trend in 2025.

Data shows that from January to February, the total retail sales of consumer goods was 8.37 trillion yuan, an increase of 4.0% year-on-year, and the growth rate accelerated by 0.5 percentage points over the whole year of the previous year. Among them, retail sales of goods increased by 3.9% year-on-year, accelerating by 0.7 percentage points over the whole year of the previous year. Among the 16 categories of goods above the limit, 14 categories of goods have achieved positive growth in retail sales, and 11 categories of goods have increased year-on-year from negative to positive compared with the whole year of the previous year. Catering revenue increased by 4.3% year-on-year, accelerating by 1.6 percentage points from December last year.

Physical retail enterprises accelerate digital transformation, innovate and enrich consumption scenarios, and continuously improve consumption experience. From January to February, among the units above the limit, the retail sales of warehousing member stores maintained double-digit growth, and the retail sales of convenience stores, professional stores and supermarkets increased by 9.8%, 5.4% and 4.0% year-on-year respectively.

Service consumption continues to expand, and new consumption such as digital, green, and intelligence are developing rapidly, providing strong support for the continued recovery and improvement of the consumer market. From January to February, the national service retail sales increased by 4.9% year-on-year, 1.0 percentage points faster than the retail sales of goods. Online retail sales increased by 7.3% year-on-year, of which, online retail sales of physical goods increased by 5.0%.

According to data from the Automobile Dealers Association, from January to February, the retail volume of new energy passenger cars increased by 35.5% year-on-year, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles was about 45%. The retail sales of sports and entertainment supplies and communication equipment in units above the limit increased by 25.0% and 26.2% year-on-year respectively.

Li Gang, Director of the Market Operation and Consumption Promotion Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said that my country's consumer market has strong resilience, great potential and sufficient vitality, and the basic trend of recovery and improvement has not changed. As various consumption expansion policies and measures continue to be implemented, the series of consumption expansion activities of "Purchase in China" are carried out in an orderly manner, and the overall consumer market will continue to show a stable development trend in 2025. Fully release the potential of commodity consumption

At the press conference, the relevant person in charge said that commodity consumption is large in scale and has strong driving force. In the next step, we must grasp the "bull's nose" of commodity consumption to stabilize the basic consumption market.

Since 2025, the Ministry of Commerce has worked with various regions and relevant departments to increase its efforts to implement the implementation of the old-for-new consumer goods. The support funds have been significantly increased from 150 billion yuan in 2024 to 300 billion yuan, and the support categories and subsidies have been further expanded, and the policy results have gradually emerged.

As of March 24, the total number of automobile trade-in applications nationwide exceeded 1.5 million; consumers purchased more than 28 million units of 12 major household appliances, more than 45 million consumers applied for new subsidies for purchases of more than 56 million mobile phones and other digital products, and more than 2.2 million units of electric bicycles.

Li Gang introduced that they will implement the policies well, closely follow and supervise, optimize convenient services, and smooth the recycling chain, so that "real money" can reach consumers more efficiently and conveniently.

At the same time, all links of the entire chain of automobile purchase and use contain huge consumption potential. At the beginning of 2025, the Ministry of Commerce and eight other departments issued the "Notice on Carrying out Pilot Work for Automobile Distribution Consumption Reform".

At present, the Ministry of Commerce is guiding local commerce authorities to work with relevant departments to carry out pilot application work in an orderly manner and speed up the preparation of pilot work plans. In the future, we will study and determine the list of pilot cities in batches in accordance with the principle of "maturity and launching a batch", and comprehensively stimulate the vitality of the automobile consumption market.

In addition, the Ministry of Commerce will also organize various forms of consumption promotion activities such as "Ten Cities Linked Sharing Food and Drinks", develop "Artificial Intelligence + Consumption", guide and promote artificial intelligence products; promote "IP + Consumption", encourage consumption of animation, games, e-sports and its surrounding derivatives; work with relevant departments to orderly develop low-altitude consumption such as consumer-grade drones, and fully release the consumption potential of commodity.