New measures announced to spur domestic consumption

China on Thursday announced targeted measures to spur new types of consumption, including accelerating new infrastructure construction and pilot programs for digital currency rollout, as part of the government's ongoing efforts to boost domestic demand and foster high-quality growth.

The country outlined 24 measures to further cultivate new types of consumption and promote the growth of both online and offline consumption, according to a document jointly released by the National Development and Reform Commission and over 20 other departments.

According to the document, this is a key move to meet residents' daily needs, fully spur the consumption and foster a complete system for domestic demand, which is of great importance to build the new "dual-circulation" development pattern.

New measures include fostering new types of retail businesses, actively developing an internet-powered healthcare sector, boosting the development of digital culture and tourism, stepping up the construction of new types of information infrastructure, building an integrated national big data centers system, stepping up the development of the 5G networks and 1000M fiber optic networks and developing smart cities and intelligent networked vehicles.

More efforts will also be made to support enterprises to improve the development capabilities of smart homes, smart mobile devices and wearable devices, spur the development of internet of vehicles, set up more electric vehicle charging piles and launch digital currency pilot programs in some cities.