China Aims to Double Domestic Consumption by 2015

By year’s end China will launch a program under its 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) to expand domestic consumption into the nation’s leading economic driver, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

The plan calls for total domestic consumption to reach 30 trillion yuan ($4.7 trillion) in 2015, up from 15.7 trillion yuan ($2.5 trillion) in 2010 while domestic retail sales would reach 70 trillion yuan ($11 trillion), up from 37 trillion yuan ($5.8 trillion).

This push to double domestic retail sales and production is the first such national effort, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. More than ten ministries and departments of the central government will be involved in implementing the program after it has been rolled out from the ministerial level into a nationwide effort.

In the first nine months of 2011 domestic consumption was over 13 trillion yuan ($2.1 trillion), representing a 17% jump over 2010. Retail sales jumped 17.7% during that period, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics.

Other major components of the consumption expansion program include financial innovation and land policy.

The massive scale of cooperation required across numerous departmental lines may pose serious hurdles to implementation, according to Song Ze, director of the Institute of Finance and Trade Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.