According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics recently, in the first quarter of this year, the per capita consumption expenditure of rural residents nationwide was 5050 yuan, an actual increase of 9.2%, 1.5 percentage points higher than that of urban residents. In recent years, with the in-depth promotion of the rural revitalization strategy, the growth of rural residents' income has accelerated. The characteristics of rapid growth and great potential of rural consumption in China have become increasingly prominent, and the quality and level of consumption have significantly improved.
At present, the growth of China's rural consumer market is generally faster than that of the urban consumer market. In 2023, the retail sales of rural consumer goods will reach 640.5 billion yuan, up 8.0% year on year, 0.9 percentage points faster than that of urban consumer goods. The per capita consumption expenditure of rural residents is 2.7 times that of 2012. Leisure agriculture and rural tourism have brought new growth points to rural consumption, and the position of rural consumption market in the overall consumption market has become increasingly prominent. The consumption structure of rural residents has gradually upgraded from production and survival consumption to development, enjoyment and service. Statistics show that the proportion of rural residents' expenditure on education, entertainment, medical care, transportation and communication services has continued to increase. The market for durable consumer goods in rural areas is not saturated. The number of cars, air conditioners and computers per 100 households of rural residents is significantly lower than that of urban households. The potential and demand space for upgrading rural echelon consumption is huge.
At the same time, the new consumption potential continued to release. The widespread popularity of the Internet and the rapid development of e-commerce have led to the innovation of rural consumption patterns. By the end of 2023, the Internet penetration rate in rural areas of China will be 66.5%, and the number of rural Internet users will reach 326 million. With the application of the Internet of Things, big data, artificial intelligence and other new generation information technologies in rural areas, new consumption formats, consumption patterns, and consumption scenarios have accelerated their penetration into rural areas, bringing new consumption growth space.
However, it should also be noted that compared with the growing and upgrading rural consumption demand, there are still shortcomings in the expansion, quality improvement and upgrading of China's rural consumption market. For example, the consumption capacity of rural residents needs to be improved, the "last mile" barrier of express service still exists, and the problems of commodity quality, after-sales service and consumer rights protection in rural consumer market need to be solved. In the future, we should further expand rural income channels, accelerate the construction of rural infrastructure and logistics system, improve rural consumer services and rights protection system, and take multiple measures to expand rural consumption.
We will expand rural income growth channels and improve consumption capacity. Give play to the advantages of rural resources and environment, develop and strengthen rural industries, develop product industries with distinctive regional characteristics, national characteristics, and local characteristics, accelerate the integrated development of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries in rural areas, explore new industries and new formats such as rural tourism, cultural experience, and health care for the elderly, and increase the operating income of rural residents. We will promote the reform of the rural land system, deepen the reform of the collective property rights system, promote the development of the rural property rights transfer market, promote the transformation of rural resources into assets, capital into equity, and villagers into shareholders, so that rural sleeping resources can be revitalized and rural residents' property income can be increased.
Strengthen infrastructure construction and improve the consumption environment. Improve the construction of infrastructure hardware facilities such as transportation, logistics, commerce, communication and Internet. Improve the layout and functions of rural transportation infrastructure, promote the construction of rural logistics express distribution system, refine the rural express logistics network, improve the distribution efficiency of express logistics, promote the coordination and linkage of urban and rural infrastructure, market, information and other logistics resources, and realize the effective docking of rural production and consumption. We will strengthen the construction of commercial infrastructure in rural areas, accelerate the transformation and upgrading of commercial facilities at the county, township and village levels, guide commercial circulation brand enterprises to sink into the county and township consumer markets, and improve the construction and operation management of commercial service facilities.
Optimize commodity quality and service, and improve consumption quality. Enrich the quality supply of rural consumption, promote chain brand enterprises such as consumer goods, household appliances and household appliances to sink into the supply chain, increase the supply of high-quality products, speed up the development of traditional consumer products to the green, intelligent and personalized direction, and better meet the diversified consumption needs of rural production and life. Promote the upgrading of rural consumption echelon, implement the preferential policies of replacing old consumer goods with new ones and a new round of agricultural machinery purchase, new energy vehicles to the countryside, smart appliances to the countryside, green building materials to the countryside, and promote the incremental improvement of rural consumption market. We will strengthen the construction of the rural consumer market supervision system, improve the quality and safety supervision mechanism of rural consumer goods, improve the rural consumer rights protection mechanism and dispute resolution mechanism, hold the bottom line of the quality and safety of rural consumer goods, and earnestly safeguard the rights and interests of rural consumers. (Author: Liu Zhisong Source: Economic Daily)
