CRI听力:State Council Releases Fresh Measures to Boost Consumption

At Wednesday's regular government meeting, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang called for more reforms and innovation to boost domestic consumption.

As part of a raft of policies, the Chinese cabinet has promised to speed up reforms on the household registration system, or known as "Hukou".

By helping people relocate to cities, it's hoped the reform will in turn boost home sales and consumption of home appliances.

Yao Jingyuan, researcher at the Counselors’ Office of the State Council, says restrictions in the Hukou system are indeed a barrier the domestic consumption.

"Currently, migrant workers living in cities could not share the public goods and services with their urban counterparts. This is an obvious problem we face when pushing forward urbanization. We need to ensure that migrants to have the same medical care and pension fund system. Also, their children ought to enjoy compulsory education like urban kids. As such, this will not only improve people's livelihood, but to offer large-scale potential consumption."

Under existing rules in China, if you live outside the area of your registration, or Hukou, is located, you're required to obtain a temporary residency permit.

Last month, the State Council took the step of eliminating temporary residency permits, potentially giving people more access to social benefits.

At the same time, the Chinese government vowed to improve the country's business and consumption environment.

This requires the authorities to tighten supervision, better protect intellectual property rights and crack down on counterfeits.

Zhao Ping, a campaigner for consumer rights, listed the key challenge in China's private consumption.

"Chinese consumers are usually in a situation of asymmetric information. As such, they tend to be overly cautious while shopping. To tackle the problem, we need to set up a sound credit information sharing system. This could allow consumers to be well informed and thus encourage them to purchase more."

In addition, the government will encourage imports of consumer goods, open more duty-free shops and improve tax refund policies for foreign tourists.

Yao Jingyuan explains why Chinese shoppers have been slow to spend overseas.

"First, the price of foreign products is always quite high in China. Secondly, we failed to identify marketable products to satisfy consumers' real demands. Therefore, it is significant for authorities to expand imports of goods that are warmly welcomed by Chinese consumers."

The newly-released measures are seen as part of China's ongoing economic transition to help foster a consumption-driven economy.

In the first three quarters of this year, the Chinese economy expanded 6.9 percent year on year.

This is the lowest rate of expansion since the second quarter of 2009.

For CRI, I am Wang Mengzhen.