China is solving the wrong consumption problem

BEIJING’S first-ever five-year consumption road map, unveiled last week, has failed to deliver the bold measures needed to make personal spending the higher strategic priority that policymakers promised.

If anything, many of its details point in the opposite direction.

For one, the stated official target of 60 trillion yuan (US$8.9 trillion) in retail sales by 2030 implies that expansion will slow to just 3.7 per cent annually from 2026 onward – far lower than the 5.3 per cent recorded during the previous plan, which included the height of the pandemic.