As 2025 draws near, China’s consumption has shown signs of revitalization as various regions and departments have enhanced the supply in the country’s consumption market.
Official data showed that the country’s popularity index for offline consumption increased by five percent year on year, and the popularity index of services showed a year-on-year jump of 10.6 percent.
The boom in consumption highlights the improvement of people’s livelihoods. “As far as Chinese modernization is concerned, the people’s well-being matters the most,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said while inspecting Chongqing Municipality in April.
During Xi’s domestic tours in 2024, “people” was one of the most frequently mentioned keywords, according to an analysis by CGTN, joined in the top 10 by others such as “development,” “modernization,” “economy,” and “ecology,” underscoring the direction and key elements of China’s path to modernization.
“Chinese Modernization, People’s Well-being Matters Most,” a special interactive page launched by CGTN, details China’s modernization drive and high-quality development in various areas in 2024 through visual effects and in-depth stories.
People’s well-being matters most
Xi has often stressed that every issue that affects the people, big or small, deserves the utmost care and attention.
During his inspection tours around China this year, he visited ordinary people to learn about their lives, from their incomes and housing to healthcare, education, and elderly care services.
“The Communist Party of China (CPC) is dedicated to serving the people, and the well-being of the people of all ethnic groups and every household is my concern,” Xi said while visiting a multi-ethnic residential community in Yinchuan, northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in June.
According to China’s Ministry of Finance, 70 percent of the government’s expenditure in 2024 has gone toward ensuring the people’s well-being.
The country has raised its expenditure in the national general public budget to about 28.55 trillion yuan ($3.91 trillion) this year, up 4 percent from the previous year, with projected budgets for education, social insurance and employment each surpassing 4 trillion yuan in 2024.
A bumper harvest
Grain security and rural revitalization have also been high on Xi’s agenda in 2024.
He has frequently visited the countryside during his inspection tours, engaging with workers in fields, greenhouses and orchards and asking in-depth questions about various aspects of rural and agricultural life, from crop production to incomes.
When visiting a village in Hunan Province in March, Xi inspected preparations for spring farming. He emphasized that, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, China must secure its own grain supply.
The latest National Bureau of Statistics of China data showed that in 2024 the country’s total grain output exceeded 706 million tonnes, an increase of 1.6 percent over the previous year, hitting a new record high.
This year’s bumper harvest was accompanied by a rise in grain planting areas in the country, which stood at over 119 million hectares, up 0.3 percent year on year. Additionally, grain output per unit area increased by 1.3 percent, the data showed.
In another positive development, China’s food security law, aimed at ensuring the supply of grain and related products, took effect in June.
Accelerating rural revitalization
Since China’s elimination of absolute poverty in 2021, the country’s focus on rural work has shifted to rural revitalization. Xi has stressed that to advance Chinese modernization, efforts must be made to accelerate rural revitalization.
China has identified 160 major counties for national rural revitalization assistance and allocated over 177 billion yuan in subsidies to support their development in 2024.
In the first three quarters of this year, the per capita disposable income of rural residents reached 16,740 yuan, a real-term annual increase of 6.3 percent.
Meanwhile, the central government allocated development funds of 7.4 billion yuan to improve production and living conditions in ethnic minority dominant villages and to protect and develop such villages.
The country has also launched monitoring and support mechanisms to prevent once-poor populations from falling back into poverty.
Work-relief programs to boost employment were also implemented this year. As of the end of October, the total scale of employment for poverty-stricken people in China had reached 33.079 million, exceeding the annual target by 2.888 million, providing strong support for consolidating and building on the achievements of poverty alleviation.
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