Cities across China launch vouchers to further lift consumption as Golden Week approaches

Cities across China are issuing vouchers to further lift consumption as the 8-day Golden Week holidays are right around the corner. 

Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong Province started to issue batches of consumption vouchers worth 130 million yuan ($18.2 million) on Wednesday. The issuance is expected to end in December. 

Residents in Guangzhou can obtain the vouchers at locations such as shopping malls and super markets, as well as online platforms.

Sichuan in Southwest China granted a second round of consumption vouchers that cover retail, dining, home appliances and sports starting from Tuesday through online platforms. They followed a first batch of consumption vouchers valued at more than 450 million yuan that were released at the end of August. 

Sanya, South China's Hainan Province, also launched consumption packages worth more than 200 million yuan, covering hotels, catering and travel agencies. 

The booming dispatch of vouchers in different cities came after higher-than-expected retail sales, a main gauge of consumption, in August. Experts said the issuance of consumer vouchers can help improve residents' willingness to spend and is conducive to accelerating economic recovery.

The contribution of final consumption expenditures to economic growth reached 77.2 percent in the first half of the year, significantly higher than the contribution rate for the whole of 2022, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Thanks to a bustling summer travel peak and consumption-boosting measures, retail sales of consumer goods in August recorded a year-on-year growth of 4.6 percent to reach 3.79 trillion yuan, 2.1 percentage points higher than the growth rate of July, NBS said on September 15, further highlighting China's steady economic recovery.  

The rebound in domestic consumption has played a vital role in driving economic development, the bureau said, highlighting the significant recovery seen in service consumption.

To boost consumption, the Ministry of the Commerce has declared 2023 as a "Boost Consumption Year," in which a series of measures will be released to lift consumption for the whole year.