Consumption remains biggest contributor to economic growth

Southeast China's coastal provinces recorded high consumption volume while the consumption in the country's central and western regions grew fast, said People's Daily on Tuesday.

Consumption remained the largest contributor to China's GDP growth in the first six months of this year, contributing 60.1 percent of the country's economic growth, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

In the same period, the national per capita consumption expenditure reached 10,330 yuan, a nominal increase of 7.5 percent year-on-year as well as the retail sales of consumer goods grew 8.4 percent year-on-year to 19.5 trillion yuan.

In the first half of this year, Shanghai took the crown in the per capita spending on consumption in China, with the figure hitting 22,513 yuan, followed by Beijing at 21,134 yuan and Tianjin at 15,967 yuan.

Moreover, as the per capita spending on consumption in Hubei province, Chongqing and Inner Mongolia autonomous region broke through 10,000 yuan in the first half of this year, the number of provincial level regions where the figure surpassed 10,000 yuan increased by three from same period of last year.

Watching rankings of national per capita consumption expenditure and national per capita disposable income, the two rankings' top 10 provincial level regions are almost same, showing Shanghai (22,513 yuan), Beijing (21,134 yuan), Tianjin (15,967 yuan), Zhejiang (15,732 yuan), Guangdong (13,884 yuan), Jiangsu (13,025 yuan), Fujian (12,521 yuan), Liaoning (10,709 yuan), Hubei (10,416 yuan) and Chongqing (10,263), as well as Shanghai (35,294 yuan), Beijing (33,860 yuan), Zhejiang (26,356 yuan), Tianjin (22,461 yuan), Jiangsu (21,624 yuan), Guangdong (20,322 yuan), Fujian (18,591 yuan), Liaoning (16,421 yuan), Shandong (16,159 yuan) and Chongqing (14,990 yuan).

Among of the top 10 provincial level regions with the highest spending on consumption, the figure of Southeast China's coastal provinces accounted for a half, including Shanghai, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Fujian, with the per capita consumption expenditure in the five regions exceeding the national average level.

Shanghai's wholesale and retail sales jumped 9 percent year-on-year to 607.93 billion yuan in the first six months of 2019, with the accommodation and catering retail sales reaching 58.22 billion yuan, up 2.9 percent from same period of last year.

In addition, the retail sales in Zhejiang reached 1.27 trillion yuan, a 9.3 percent climb year-on-year and in Guangdong 2.07 trillion yuan, up 7.7 percent year-on-year.

Although the consumption volume in the country's central and western regions was less than in southeastern coastal provinces, the consumption grew fast.

In the first six months of this year, the retail sales in Sichuan, Henan and Jiangxi increased 10.5 percent, 10.7 percent and 11.2 percent, respectively, which were higher than 2.1 percentage points, 2.3 percentage points and 2.8 percentage points than the national average level.

Some regions feature service consumption, developmental consumption and experience consumption as the mobile internet technology developing, said the People's Daily.

In Beijing, the service consumption contributed 70.4 percent to the consumption growth in the first half of this year, and the upgrading consumption such as communication, education, culture entertainment, and medical care contributed more than 60 percent to the consumption growth.

In Shanghai, the no-store retail sales reached 117.32 billion yuan in the first half of this year, surged 20.4 percent year-on-year.

The online consumption will continue to grow rapidly, as the network infrastructure and telecommunications services promoting, the 5G networking accelerating, the new generation information technology breaking through, the new business featuring digitization, informatization and intellectualization turning up, the mobile payment popularizing as well as the smart logistics and social e-commerce developing, said the People's Daily, citing Du Xishuang, an official at the NBS.

The consumption's fundamental role in economic development will be prominent, as Chinese people's incomes rise, the scale of consumption continues to expand, the level of consumption improves, and the structure of consumption enhances, Zhao Ping, a researcher with the Academy of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, told the People's Daily.