250 billion in special national bonds support old-for-new exchanges, "real money" boosts consumption

Source: 21st Century Business Herald 21 Finance APP Author: Zhang Xu

On the morning of March 5, at 9 AM, the Fourth Session of the 14th National People’s Congress opened at the Great Hall of the People. Premier Li Qiang represented the State Council and delivered the government work report to the Fourth Session of the 14th National People’s Congress.

The 2026 government work report proposed promoting the expansion and upgrading of commodity consumption, allocating 250 billion yuan in ultra-long-term special government bonds to support the replacement of old consumer goods, and optimizing the policy implementation mechanism. A special fund of 100 billion yuan for fiscal and financial coordination to promote domestic demand will be established, using a combination of loan interest subsidies, financing guarantees, and risk compensation to support the expansion of domestic demand.

Consumption is the main engine driving economic growth. By 2025, our country will deeply implement special actions to boost consumption, with the scale of the consumer market steadily expanding. The total retail sales of social consumer goods exceeded 50 trillion yuan for the first time, and the contribution rate of consumption to economic growth reached 52%.

Since 2026, the policy for replacing old consumer goods has been fully implemented with precision, covering key areas such as automobiles, home appliances, and digital and smart products, effectively activating market consumption potential and achieving a good start for the consumption market. Local governments have also introduced supporting measures, refining implementation plans to enhance the effectiveness of the replacement policy.

On February 14, Henan released the “Implementation Plan for Promoting Large-scale Equipment Update and Replacement of Consumer Goods in Henan Province for 2026,” proposing to strive to complete the scrapping and replacement of about 500,000 personal consumer vehicles and the replacement of about 5 million home appliances by the end of 2026. Starting from February 9, Beijing implemented a new subsidy scheme for replacing old cars, with a maximum subsidy amount of 20,000 yuan.

With the support of policies like replacing old goods, the consumption market in Guangdong flourished during the Spring Festival, with a continuous optimization of the consumption structure and robust supply and demand for service consumption. Retail sales income from daily home appliances such as vacuum robots increased by 137.9% year-on-year, retail sales income from communication devices such as smartphones increased by 53.1% year-on-year, sales of new energy vehicles increased by 46.8% year-on-year, showing a clear trend of upgrading resident consumption.

According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, as of February 23, 2026, the replacement policy for consumer goods has benefited 31.127 million people, driving sales of 207.03 billion yuan. The demand for smart and green products is strong. As of February 5, 2026, applications for the old car replacement subsidy reached 335,000, driving new car sales of 53.77 billion yuan.

On March 2, the 2026 National Consumption Promotion Month and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Consumption Season were launched in Tianjin. The Ministry of Commerce stated that the 2026 National Consumption Promotion Month and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Consumption Season, as key thematic activities of “Purchasing in China,” will further optimize the implementation of the consumer goods replacement policy, deepen new business formats, new models, and new scenarios in consumption, expand the supply of high-quality goods and services, promote the economy of first launches, health consumption, green consumption, and smart consumption, and drive the integration of multiple scenarios in business, travel, culture, and sports, better meeting diverse and quality consumption demands.

The old-for-new policy is an important part of expanding domestic demand and boosting consumption. On March 4, spokesperson for the Fourth Session of the 14th National People’s Congress, Lou Qinjian, pointed out that this year, we will adhere to the strategic baseline of expanding domestic demand, vigorously boost consumption, and promote the construction of a strong domestic market.

On one hand, we will expand the supply of high-quality consumer goods and services. Implement actions to improve service consumption and benefit the public, accelerate the cultivation of new growth points in service consumption; optimize the consumer goods replacement policy to promote the expansion and upgrading of commodity consumption; create an internationalized consumption environment, enrich consumption scenarios, and effectively organize the “Purchasing in China” series of activities.

On the other hand, we will closely combine benefiting the people’s livelihood with promoting consumption. Promote high-quality employment, formulate and implement plans to increase income for urban and rural residents, and enhance residents’ consumption capacity. Steadily promote the equalization of basic public services, improve the education, childcare, elderly care, and medical security systems, and reduce residents’ consumption concerns.

“This year, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress will supervise the construction of a unified domestic market, solidly promote comprehensive rural revitalization, and formulate social assistance laws, medical security laws, and childcare service laws, to promote more resources into the field of people’s livelihood, so that the people can consume, dare to consume, and are willing to consume.”

(Edited by: Wen Jing)

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