Since the beginning of this year, in order to expand effective domestic demand, fiscal, financial, and industrial policies have been working together. Through innovative measures such as structural monetary policy tools, loan interest subsidies, and financing guarantees, a set of powerful and widely covered policy "combination punches" have been launched, mobilizing more resources to accurately drip irrigate key areas of consumption and investment. Experts predict that macroeconomic policies will continue to strengthen coordination and cooperation, expand investment space, stimulate private investment vitality, and increase financial support for new consumption scenarios.
Dual empowerment of supply and demand
Boosting consumption is a key lever for expanding domestic demand. This year, multiple departments have intensively introduced incremental supporting policies, making efforts from multiple dimensions such as financial empowerment, policy subsidies, and local linkage to boost residents' willingness to consume.
Monetary policy focuses on improving the quality and upgrading of the consumer sector. The central bank has expanded the support areas for service consumption and elderly care re lending, and lowered the re lending interest rate to 1.25%, guiding financial institutions to increase credit investment in service consumption, elderly care and other fields.
The precise linkage and coordination of fiscal policies, the Ministry of Finance, in conjunction with multiple departments, will optimize the two interest subsidy policies for service industry operators and personal consumption loans. Li Nan, Deputy Director of the Financial Department of the Ministry of Finance, recently introduced that two policies to promote consumption are working together from both the supply and demand sides, benefiting residents' consumption by about 500 billion yuan in the first quarter. On the one hand, the newly issued loans to service industry operating entities exceeded 3.1 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.2%; On the other hand, nearly 5.4 trillion yuan of personal consumption loans were newly issued, a year-on-year increase of 2.5%, slightly higher than the growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods during the same period.
The trade in of consumer goods continues to drive consumption growth. This year, the central government allocated 250 billion yuan of extra long term special treasury bond to support the exchange of old for new consumer goods. Up to now, the Ministry of Finance has allocated 125 billion yuan of extra long term special treasury bond funds in two batches to support consumers to buy new ones. According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, as of April 12th, the sales revenue of consumer goods for trade in reached 502.94 billion yuan in 2026, benefiting 69.777 million people.
At the same time, various regions have introduced supporting measures tailored to local conditions and refined policies to promote consumption.
Advance efforts to expand investment
While the consumer market is performing well, the policy of expanding investment continues to push forward, and investment in infrastructure and manufacturing industries is steadily recovering, becoming a major highlight of the economic operation in the first quarter.
The pace of financial investment continues to accelerate. In the first quarter, the national general public budget expenditure scale was 24.9% of the budget at the beginning of the year, with the fastest progress in the past five years; A total of 1159.9 billion yuan of newly issued special bonds were issued nationwide, an increase of 20.8% compared to the same period last year; Allocated special bond funds of 672.3 billion yuan, an increase of 209.6 billion yuan compared to the same period last year, effectively promoting the formation of physical workload.
"In 2026, the list of 'dual' construction projects will be issued in advance, and the extra long term special treasury bond bonds and local government special bonds will increase efficiency, promoting the rapid growth of infrastructure investment in the first quarter, and the overall growth of fixed assets investment will turn from negative to positive," said Luo Zhiheng, chief economist of Yuekai Securities.
The narrowing of the decline in private investment indicates the effectiveness of incremental policies such as private enterprise refinancing and private investment special guarantee plans. As of the end of the first quarter, Henan Province has issued a total of 23.85 billion yuan in re loans to private enterprises; Guangdong Province has cumulatively provided 64.5 billion yuan in re loans to private enterprises, achieving full coverage in 21 cities within the province. As of early April 2026, the cumulative scale of the Guangxi Private Investment Special Guarantee Program is nearly 1.4 billion yuan, serving more than 1500 private market entities.
Li Nan stated that by comprehensively utilizing policies such as subsidized loans for small and medium-sized enterprises, subsidized loans for equipment updates, and special guarantee plans for private investment, a multi-level financing support system can be constructed to reduce both financing costs and financing thresholds. In the first quarter, relevant policies supported enterprise financing of about 330 billion yuan, up 12.8% year on year, 11.1 percentage points higher than the growth rate of national fixed assets investment in the same period, benefiting investment of about 480 billion yuan.
The intensity of countercyclical regulation is expected to increase
Facing the goal of stabilizing growth and expanding domestic demand in the next stage, macroeconomic regulation will continue to increase its countercyclical adjustment efforts, reserve incremental policies, and build a long-term mechanism for domestic demand growth.
In terms of investment, relevant departments will continue to play a key supporting role in investment and promote high-quality "dual" construction. Wu Jinhui, a researcher of the CSI Pengyuan Research and Development Department, predicted that the relevant departments would promote the "dual" construction with high quality, make overall use of the central budget investment, ultra long term special treasury bond, local special bonds and new policy financial instruments, optimize capital investment and project management, guide private capital to participate in the construction of major projects, expand investment space, and continue to enhance the role of investment in supporting economic growth.
Lian Ping, President and Chief Economist of Guangkai Chief Industry Research Institute, suggested adding special funds to strengthen the coordination and cooperation of fiscal, monetary, industrial and other policies, and form a policy synergy. Continue to strengthen the linkage between fiscal policy and monetary policy, and guide the flow of financial funds to key areas and weak links through fiscal subsidies, tax incentives, and other means, especially by increasing loan subsidies and guarantees for private enterprises and personal housing loans.
In response to the development characteristics of service industry enterprises, policy support for them is expected to increase. Cheng Shi, Chief Economist of ICBC International, stated that given the high proportion of small and medium-sized enterprises in the service industry and the limited fixed assets, financial support such as credit loans and intellectual property pledges can be improved to alleviate financing constraints for service industry enterprises, improve the income level of service industry employees, and enhance the quality of service supply. (Looking into the New Era)