Opinion | China's trade fairs help boost consumption potential

Recently, China has hosted a number of trade fairs including the fifth China International Consumer Products Expo (CICPE) and the 137th edition of the China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair). The success of these events says a lot about the determination and confidence of all parties in strengthening trade and economic cooperation and resisting unilateralism and protectionism.

Cai Tongjuan, Director of the Macro Research Department and Research Fellow of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies (RDCY), said in an interview with China Youth Daily that against the backdrop of the current sluggish global economic recovery and pressure on domestic consumption growth, these trade fairs can help boost consumption potential by focusing on the display of high-quality consumer goods at home and abroad, thus stimulating residents' enthusiasm for consumption.

According to China's National Bureau of Statistics, China's retail sales of consumer goods, a major indicator of the country's consumption strength, expanded 4.6 percent year on year in the first quarter of 2025, and the pace is 1.1 percentage points faster than the 2024 level. Total retail sales of consumer goods reached 12.47 trillion yuan (about 1.73 trillion U.S. dollars) in the January-March period. "China's consumer market is expected to continue to rebound." Cai said.

As an example, Cai cited the fifth CICPE, which highlights high-quality new products in emerging consumption areas such as fashion consumption, digital consumption, health consumption and green consumption, and covers cutting-edge areas such as artificial intelligence, low-altitude economy and health and wellness. She believed that guiding the upgrading of consumption will promote the optimization and upgrading of related industrial chains, and help China achieve more high-quality development progress. (By Ma Ziqian/China Youth Daily)