The Shenzhen Development and Reform Commission yesterday issued Several Measures to Promote Consumption in Shenzhen. The measures focus on five aspects: improving the consumption environment, encouraging automobile consumption, supporting housing consumption, promoting service consumption, and facilitating consumption by Hong Kong residents. The document lists 21 specific measures to further stimulate consumption potential, expand consumption demand, and boost consumer confidence.

The first aspect is to create a high-quality consumption environment and enhance market activity. 

A night view of Dapeng Fortress. File photo 

The measures include regulating the management of residential water, electricity, and gas prices, promoting economic development in commercial areas, and maintaining order in the consumer market. The aim is to continuously enhance consumption capacity, create new diverse consumption scenes, and establish a safe consumption environment.

In some urban villages in Shenzhen, landlords often raise prices for water, electricity, and gas, which increases the cost of living for residents and limits their consumption capacity. The measures propose regulating the management of residential water, electricity, and gas prices. The "Regulations on the Management of Water, Electricity, and Gas Prices for Residents in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone" will be implemented starting from October 1 this year. Various regulatory and enforcement departments will strengthen supervision and law enforcement of civilian water, electricity, and gas prices, and crack down on illegal price increases, ultimately reducing the cost of living for residents.

In promoting car consumption, the measures support the replacement of old cars. A maximum subsidy of 10,000 yuan will be provided to individuals who scrap or sell ordinary small cars with "National IV" or lower emission standards and purchase qualified new energy vehicles before the end of the year. Enterprises, individual businesses, and others who purchase qualified new energy tourism vehicles (including clean fuel buses), new energy vehicles for landscaping operations, and mechanical equipment will receive a subsidy of up to 50,000 yuan per vehicle. Coordination will be done to scrap and replace fuel-powered official vehicles, police cars, State-owned enterprise vehicles, etc. with new energy vehicles.

In terms of supporting housing consumption, the withdrawal limit for housing provident fund for renting will be increased. Employees and their family members who do not have commercial housing, policy-based housing, or guarantee-based housing in the city can withdraw up to 80% of the monthly deposit amount applied for rent. New residents or young employees can withdraw up to the monthly deposit amount applied. Employees from families with multiple children can withdraw up to the monthly deposit amount applied, and those who have registered a rental contract can withdraw according to the actual monthly rent. Employees who rent public rental housing can withdraw housing provident fund to pay rent according to the actual rent.

The measures support the promotion of whole-house intelligence in commercial housing and guarantee-based housing, and the installation of elevators in old residential areas as well as the renovation of old elevators.

To promote service consumption and expand consumption "capacity" for Hong Kong residents, the document lists six specific measures in various sectors such as digital consumption, dining, culture and entertainment, tourism, exhibitions, and health. These measures aim to tap into the potential of consumption and continuously improve consumption capacity and quality.

The measures propose organizing events such as the Shenzhen Food Festival and Shenzhen-Hong Kong Cross-border Food Festival to support the development of traditional food streets, revitalize well-known old brands, and provide up to 1 million yuan in incentives for newly introduced dining enterprises that meet the requirements.

Additionally, the measures aim to expand the scale of cultural and entertainment consumption. The government plans to distribute 10 million yuan worth of "culture vouchers" and 50,000 zero-threshold digital red envelopes to encourage cultural and entertainment consumption and increase the supply of art performances. The government also plans to improve the functionality of the "iShenzhen" sports venue reservation platform and increase the coverage of "open sharing and one-click reservation" for sports venues in various schools by more than 50%. Additionally, 60 million yuan worth of sports venue consumption vouchers will be issued annually.