Continuously Forming New Growth Points for Expanding Domestic Demand

A strong domestic market is the strategic foundation for advancing Chinese-path modernization. The *Proposal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development* (hereinafter referred to as the *Proposal*) states that we should promote the formation of more economic development models that are domestic-demand-led, consumption-driven, and endogenously growing. The 2025 Central Economic Work Conference emphasized expanding new space for domestic demand growth by strengthening the domestic great circulation. At present, the connotation of China’s domestic demand expansion is undergoing profound changes, making it urgent to promote the optimization of the consumption structure and the upgrading of its driving forces, and to continuously form new growth points for expanding domestic demand. The key lies in recognizing and grasping emerging fields that make significant incremental contributions and lead qualitative changes to the economy, cultivating and strengthening new demands and new supplies that represent technological frontiers and align with structural changes, and using new business forms, new models, and new tracks as carriers to achieve a virtuous mutual promotion where new demand leads new supply and new supply creates new demand. This is also a vivid manifestation of accelerating the cultivation and development of new quality productive forces on both the supply and demand sides.

强大国内市场是推进中国式现代化的战略依托。《中共中央关于制定国民经济和社会发展第十五个五年规划的建议》（以下简称《建议》）提出，促进形成更多由内需主导、消费拉动、内生增长的经济发展模式。2025年中央经济工作会议强调，围绕做强国内大循环，拓展内需增长新空间。当前我国内需扩张的内涵发生深刻变化，亟须推动消费结构优化和动力升级，不断形成扩大内需的新增长点。其关键在于认识和把握对经济产生显著增量贡献与质变引领的新兴领域，培育和壮大那些代表技术前沿、契合结构变迁的新需求与新供给，以新业态、新模式、新赛道为载体，实现以新需求引领新供给、以新供给创造新需求的良性互促，这也是加快培育和发展新质生产力在供需两侧的生动体现。

1. New Domestic Demand Momentum Led by Putting the People First

1.人民至上引领的新内需动能

Adhering to putting the people first is a principle that must be followed in economic and social development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. The *Proposal* emphasizes focusing on ensuring and improving people’s livelihoods through development, and expanding development space while meeting the people’s livelihood needs. The upgrading and expansion of domestic demand is essentially a tangible projection and concrete satisfaction of the people’s needs for a better life. The people’s aspirations for higher-quality education, more reliable medical care, more comfortable housing, and a richer cultural life are the fundamental source of domestic demand expansion. Expanding domestic demand must proceed in the same direction as increasing efforts to ensure and improve people’s livelihoods. Promoting high-quality and full employment, running education that satisfies the people, and effectively raising the level of residents’ disposable income will build a solid micro-foundation for domestic demand growth.

坚持人民至上，是“十五五”时期经济社会发展必须遵循的一项原则。《建议》强调，注重在发展中保障和改善民生，在满足民生需求中拓展发展空间。内需扩容升级，本质上是人民美好生活需要的有形投射与具象化满足。人民对更优质教育、更可靠医疗、更舒适居住、更丰富文化生活的向往，是内需扩张的根本源泉。扩大内需必须与加大保障和改善民生力度同向而行。促进高质量充分就业，办好人民满意的教育，切实提高居民可支配收入水平等，将为内需增长筑就坚实微观基础。

Expanding domestic demand is a concentrated embodiment of the people-centered nature of development goals, the inclusiveness of the development process, and the shared nature of development achievements. The gestation and flourishing of all new growth points must be based on the close integration of benefiting people’s livelihoods and promoting consumption, and of investing in things and investing in people. There are two basic pathways for cultivating new domestic demand drivers during the 15th Five-Year Plan period: first, guided by the dynamic upgrading of the demand structure, promoting the supply system’s leap from “meeting basic needs” to “leading with quality”; second, taking human development as the foundation, releasing suppressed consumption potential and investment space by optimizing spatial layout and institutional environments. Continuously forming new growth points for expanding domestic demand requires precisely anchoring the people’s value demands in areas such as life and health, spiritual enrichment, livable environment, social equity, and security guarantees, reconstructing the logic of consumption and investment, and forging a development path with Chinese characteristics where the value of domestic demand and the value of people are simultaneously enhanced.

扩大内需是发展目标的人民性、发展过程的包容性与发展成果的共享性的集中体现。一切新增长点的孕育与勃兴，都必须立足于惠民生和促消费、投资于物和投资于人的紧密结合。“十五五”时期培育内需新动能有两大基本路径：一是以需求结构的动态升级为导向，推动供给体系从“满足基本”到“引领优质”的跨越；二是以人的发展为根本，通过优化空间布局与制度环境，释放被抑制的消费潜能与投资空间。不断形成扩大内需的新增长点，要求精准锚定人民在生命健康、精神富足、环境宜居、社会公平、安全保障等方面的价值诉求，重构消费与投资的逻辑，走出一条内需价值与人的价值同步提升的中国特色发展之路。

2. New Consumption Ecosystems Driven by Innovation Empowerment

2.创新赋能驱动的新消费生态

Driven by the dual engines of technological breakthroughs and model innovation, the consumption ecosystem is undergoing a systemic restructuring, exhibiting new features such as scene extension, spatial breakthrough, and boundary dissolution, giving birth to new consumption growth points with rich connotations and diverse forms. First, residents’ consumption is shifting from “having” to “having better,” showing new consumption pursuits of personalization, spiritual enrichment, convenience, and inclusiveness. Intelligent technologies represented by artificial intelligence and the metaverse, through digital empowerment, create more immersive, experiential, and interactive new consumption scenarios, producing unprecedented consumption experiences. Second, under the consumption trend of maximizing time value and pursuing ultimate experiences, innovative applications in the low-altitude and deep-space economies can reshape the spatial boundaries of consumption, pushing the boundaries of domestic demand from a planar geography to a three-dimensional space. Third, consumers increasingly seek deep spiritual resonance, community identity, and local cultural experiences, driving the integration of “culture, entertainment, sports, and tourism” from simple superposition to organic fusion, nurturing rich and diverse new forms of service consumption. For example, e-sports, with its unique interactivity and cultural stickiness, has spawned a hundred-billion-yuan service consumption ecosystem ranging from event copyrights and live-streaming tipping to offline viewing and themed tourism. Grassroots events like “Village BA” [1]1 “Village BA” (村BA) refers to grassroots basketball tournaments held in rural areas of China, which have gained immense popularity for their lively atmosphere and strong community engagement. and “Su Super League” [2]2 “Su Super League” (苏超) refers to a grassroots football league in Jiangsu Province, known for its local cultural integration and mass participation. deeply integrate local culture, local sentiments, and the national fitness craze, providing an innovative service product with high emotional added value that combines event viewing, folk participation, and specialty product consumption, igniting new consumption booms.

在技术突破与模式创新双轮驱动下，消费生态正经历系统性重构，呈现出场景延展、空间突破、边界消融的新特征，催生出内涵丰富、形态多样的新消费增长点。第一，居民消费正从“有”向“优”转变，表现出个性化、精神富足与便捷普惠的消费新追求。以人工智能、元宇宙等为代表的智能技术通过数字赋能，打造更多沉浸式、体验式、互动式消费新场景，创造前所未有的消费体验。第二，在时间价值最大化与体验追求极致化的消费趋势下，低空与深空经济的创新应用能够重塑消费的空间边界，将内需的边界从平面地理推向立体空间。第三，消费者愈发追求精神层面的深度共鸣、社群认同与在地文化体验，推动“文娱+体育+旅游”从简单叠加走向有机融合，孕育出丰富多元的服务消费新形态。例如，电子竞技以其独特的互动性和文化黏性，衍生出从赛事版权、直播打赏到线下观演、主题旅游的千亿级服务消费生态；“村BA”“苏超”等民间赛事将地方文化、乡土情感与全民运动热潮深度融合，提供了一种集赛事观赏、民俗参与、特产消费于一体的高情感附加值创新服务产品，引爆了新的消费热潮。

Marx revealed the identity of production and consumption, that “production produces consumption,” and at the same time, “without need there is no production, and consumption reproduces need.” The innovation-empowered new consumption ecosystems and scenarios are a vivid interpretation of this dialectical relationship in the New Era: the new demands spurred by the people’s aspiration for a better life constitute the fundamental driving force for supply innovation, which in turn creates new consumption objects, new consumption methods, and new consumption drivers, achieving the dialectical unity of production and consumption at a higher level. The subversion of traditional content production by artificial intelligence, the breakthrough of time-space constraints by the low-altitude economy, and the redrawing of industrial boundaries by the integration of culture, sports, and tourism all constitute new growth points for expanding domestic demand.

马克思揭示了生产与消费的同一性，即“生产生产着消费”，同时“没有需要，就没有生产，而消费则把需要再生产出来”。创新赋能新消费生态和场景，正是这一辩证关系在新时代的生动演绎：人民对美好生活向往所催生的新需求，构成供给创新的根本动力，后者又创造出新的消费对象、新的消费方式和新的消费动力，在更高水平上实现生产与消费的辩证统一。人工智能对传统内容生产的颠覆、低空经济对时空约束的突破、文体旅融合对产业边界的重划等，均构成扩大内需的新增长点。

3. New Investment Tracks Spawned by Green Transformation

3.绿色转型催生的新投资赛道

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, “Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets.” [3]3 “Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets” is a famous dictum by Xi Jinping, encapsulating the concept that ecological protection is compatible with and can drive economic development. Under the “dual carbon” goals [4]4 “Dual carbon” goals refer to China’s stated objectives of peaking carbon emissions before 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality before 2060., the people’s demand for a green environment and the national requirement for energy security jointly drive the green transformation from a cost constraint to a full-fledged growth engine, spawning new investment tracks that combine immense social value with long-term capital returns. The core of green growth points lies in the systematic replacement and upgrading of traditional energy systems and production models. Among these, new-type energy storage is a key link in solving the problem of new energy consumption and ensuring grid security. According to data from the National Energy Administration, by the end of 2024, the cumulative installed capacity of new-type energy storage projects built and put into operation nationwide reached 73.76 million kilowatts / 168 million kilowatt-hours, accounting for over 40% of the global total installed capacity, making China’s new-type energy storage scale the world’s largest. The circular economy has upgraded from a “waste economy” to a “resource substitution economy,” constructing a completely new value chain. Taking power battery recycling as an example, in 2024, the domestic recycling volume of power batteries exceeded 300,000 tons, corresponding to a market size of over 48 billion yuan. It is estimated that by 2030, the recycling market size will exceed 100 billion yuan. Tracks such as energy-saving renovation, hydrogen energy, and nuclear fusion energy are also experiencing explosive growth. These investments not only serve the “dual carbon” goals but also, through technological iteration and cost reduction, form a commercially sustainable green domestic demand market and endogenous growth momentum.

习近平总书记指出，“绿水青山就是金山银山”。在“双碳”目标下，人民群众的绿色环境需求与国家层面的能源安全要求，共同推动绿色转型从成本约束全面转向增长引擎，并催生出兼具巨大社会价值与长期资本回报的新投资赛道。绿色新增长点的核心在于对传统能源系统和生产模式的系统性替代与升级。其中，新型储能是解决新能源消纳难题、保障电网安全的关键环节。据国家能源局数据，截至2024年底，全国已建成投运新型储能项目累计装机规模达7376万千瓦/1.68亿千瓦时，装机规模占全球总装机规模40%以上，中国新型储能规模跃居世界第一。循环经济从“废弃物经济”升级为“资源替代经济”，构建了全新的价值链。以动力电池回收为例，2024年国内动力电池回收量突破30万吨，对应市场规模超480亿元，预计到2030年回收市场规模将突破千亿元。节能改造、氢能和核聚变能等赛道也迎来爆发式增长。这些投资不仅服务于“双碳”目标，更通过技术迭代和成本下降，形成具有商业可持续性的绿色内需市场和内生增长动力。

4. New Market Spaces Opened Up by Structural Changes

4.结构变迁开辟的新市场空间

During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, changes in China’s social structure and the structural transformation and upgrading of industrial security needs are continuously releasing domestic demand potential and opening up vast new market spaces.

“十五五”时期我国社会结构的变化与产业安全需求的结构性转换升级，正在不断释放内需潜力，开辟出广阔的新市场空间。

First, the comprehensive rise of the “silver economy.” According to forecasts by the China Population and Development Research Center, between 2025 and 2030, China’s population aged 60 and above will rapidly grow to 390 million, spawning a consumption market on a scale of tens of trillions of yuan. The growth points of the silver economy are expanding from basic elderly care services to high-quality, personalized fields such as senior tourism, online education, rehabilitation aids, and intelligent companion robots. Its service models and technological applications can draw on the pioneering experience of other countries and achieve iterative innovation based on China’s super-large market.

一是“银发经济”的全面崛起。根据中国人口与发展研究中心预测，在2025至2030年期间，中国60岁及以上人口将快速增长至3.9亿，催生一个规模达十万亿级的消费市场。银发经济的增长点正从基础的养老服务，向老年旅游、在线教育、康复辅具、智能陪护机器人等高品质、个性化领域扩展，其服务模式与技术应用可借鉴其他国家的先行经验，并基于我国超大规模市场实现迭代创新。

Second, the county economy is an important cornerstone for stabilizing consumption. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that in 2025, the market size of counties and townships, including towns and villages, accounted for over 38% of total retail sales of consumer goods. Counties are becoming new growth spaces for areas such as new energy vehicles, branded home appliances, and experiential retail. When county residents can access high-quality goods, services, and employment opportunities close to home, their consumption potential can be truly and sustainably stimulated. This in itself is the greatest aspect of people’s livelihoods.

二是县域经济是稳消费的重要基石。国家统计局数据显示，2025年，包括镇区和乡村的县乡市场规模占社会消费品零售总额的比重超过38%，县域正成为新能源汽车、品牌家电、体验式零售等领域的增长新空间。当县域居民能在家门口获得优质的商品、服务和就业机会，其消费潜能才会被真正、可持续地激发，这本身也是最大的民生。

Third, urban renewal coordinated with the urbanization of the agricultural transfer population expands the increment of domestic demand. Urban renewal provides high-quality spatial capacity for the urbanization of the agricultural transfer population, while the urbanization of the agricultural transfer population brings vitality and demand to urban renewal. Through comprehensive quality improvement of existing housing stock, infrastructure, and public spaces, it directly leverages investment and consumption in areas such as green building materials, smart homes, community-based elderly care, and underground utility tunnels. By deepening reforms in the household registration system, social security, and land systems, and advancing the urbanization of the agricultural transfer population, their consumption patterns will be propelled to leap from a "basic type" to a "developmental type," generating sustained consumption demand in housing, education, culture, and other areas.

三是城市更新与农业转移人口市民化协同推进扩大内需增量。城市更新为农业转移人口市民化提供高质量的承载空间，农业转移人口市民化为城市更新带来活力与需求。通过对存量住房、基础设施和公共空间的综合提质，直接撬动绿色建材、智能家居、社区养老、地下管廊等领域的投资与消费。通过深化户籍、社保、土地等制度改革，推进农业转移人口市民化，将推动其消费模式从“基础型”向“发展型”跃升，在住房、教育、文化等方面产生持续的消费需求。

Fourth, the strategic demand arising from domestic substitution of "bottleneck" technologies. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasizes that key and core technologies cannot be obtained, bought, or begged for. [5]5 Xi Jinping, speech at a symposium of scientists, September 11, 2020. Western countries have imposed technological blockades on China in areas such as high-end chip manufacturing equipment and EDA software, making the achievement of independent control over key technologies a shift from an "optional item" to a "mandatory item." As China gradually achieves breakthroughs in key and core technology fields and the capacity for domestic substitution continuously improves, this will give rise to new economic growth points, injecting strong momentum into the domestic demand market.

四是“卡脖子”技术国产替代带来的战略性需求。习近平总书记强调，关键核心技术是要不来、买不来、讨不来的。西方国家在高端芯片制造设备、EDA软件等领域对中国实行技术封锁，使得实现关键技术的自主可控从“备选项”转变为“必选项”。随着我国在关键核心技术领域逐步取得突破，国产替代能力的不断提升，将催生出新的经济增长点，为内需市场注入强劲动力。

5. A New Growth Cycle Shaped by Dynamic Timing

5.动态时序塑造的新增长循环

Continuously forming new growth points for expanding domestic demand is a dynamic process that responds to the progressive escalation and continuous upgrading of the people's needs hierarchy. The five-year cycle of the 14th Five-Year Plan [6]6 The 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–2025) is China's national economic and social development plan. is a complete temporal unit requiring a balance between short-term results and long-term momentum. On the one hand, short-term policies should be well utilized to respond to the most urgent livelihood needs of society, laying a solid foundation for long-term development. By employing counter-cyclical measures such as moderate consumption incentives to secure the bottom line of people's livelihoods and stabilize social expectations, it is possible both to prevent the emergence of systemic risks and to create a stable macro-environment for advancing long-term initiatives such as scientific and technological breakthroughs and income distribution reform. On the other hand, the implementation of long-term strategies and policies can continuously create new demand. For example, forward-looking layout and investment in future industries such as quantum technology and biomanufacturing are both strategic decisions to build long-term competitiveness and can immediately generate effective investment and employment in the present. Building a standardized, transparent, open, vibrant, and resilient capital market can unleash significant wealth effects and boost residents' consumption confidence. Therefore, short-term policies must quench the "immediate thirst" of people's livelihoods, while long-term policies need to lay out the "distant chessboard" of development, and during implementation, allow the people to feel as early as possible the "near-term benefits" brought by the "distant chessboard," thereby constructing a virtuous cycle in which new growth points for domestic demand are "continuously formed."

不断形成扩大内需的新增长点，是一个响应人民需求层次递进、持续升级的动态过程。“十五五”规划的五年周期，是一个要求兼顾短期成效与长期动能的完整时序单元。一方面，用好短期政策回应社会最急切的民生需求，为长期发展筑牢根基。通过适度的消费激励等逆周期措施兜牢民生底线、稳定社会预期，既可以预防系统性风险的产生，也为推进科技攻关、收入分配改革等利在长远的举措创造稳定的宏观环境。另一方面，长期战略实施及政策推进可以持续创造新的需求。例如，对量子科技、生物制造等未来产业的前瞻性布局投资，既是构筑长远竞争力的战略决策，也能在当下立即形成有效投资与就业。建设规范、透明、开放、有活力、有韧性的资本市场，可以激发显著的财富效应，提升居民消费信心。因此，短期政策要解民生之“近渴”，长期政策则需布发展之“远局”，并在实施过程中让人民群众尽早感受到“远局”带来的“近利”，由此构建起内需新增长点“不断形成”的良性循环。

The formation of new growth points for domestic demand is the result of the combined effect of the traction of the people's needs and the drive of market innovation. The people's continuously upgraded aspiration for a better life constitutes the value traction for the expansion of domestic demand. The new consumption ecology driven by innovation empowerment, the new investment tracks spawned by green transformation, and the new market spaces opened up by structural change outline a clear picture of sustainable growth in domestic demand during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. We must grasp the core characteristics of new growth points for expanding domestic demand, activate market forces through institutional innovation, balance the short term and the long term with temporal wisdom, closely integrate benefiting people's livelihoods with promoting consumption and investing in things with investing in people, continuously open up new spaces for domestic demand, cultivate new momentum for growth, and build the power foundation of the domestic great circulation.

内需新增长点的形成，是人民需求牵引与市场创新驱动共同作用的结果。人民对美好生活持续升级的向往，构成内需扩张的价值牵引力。创新赋能驱动的新消费生态、绿色转型催生的新投资赛道、结构变迁开辟的新市场空间，勾勒出“十五五”时期内需可持续增长的清晰图谱。我们必须抓住扩大内需新增长点的核心特征，以制度创新激活市场力量，以时序智慧平衡短期与长期，把惠民生和促消费、投资于物和投资于人紧密结合，不断开辟内需新空间，培育增长新动能，筑就国内大循环的动力之基。

(Author: He Lilong, Professor at the School of Economics, Sichuan University)

（作者：贺立龙，系四川大学经济学院教授）