China Economic Comment "Shift in consumption policy stance; waiting for..."

Research evidence excerpt

China Economic Comment "Shift in consumption policy stance; waiting for..."

Global Research

29 June 2026ab

China Economic Comment Economics

ChinaShift in consumption policy stance; waiting for

overall policy change Yu Song

Economist

yu-za.song@ubs.com

+86-10-5832 8508

Policy: Grace Wang

S1460524050003Qiushi (the Pursuit of Truth) magazine has been an important channel of communicating

grace-zc.wang@ubs.com

policy intention of the party leadership, in our view.

+86-105-832 8335

William Deng

At the start of 2026, Qiushi published an article on the property market which marked Economist

the start of the current round of property loosening. The impacts of this policy stance william-w.deng@ubs.com

change have become more obvious in recent weeks. +852-2971 6765

Jennifer Zhong

Qiushi published an article on consumptions supports last week, which we think was Economist

insightful because: (1) It mentioned negative retail growth in May, clearly stating the S1460516050002

article was responding to the recent weakness instead of a reiteration of existing policy jennifer-a.zhong@ubs.com

stance on consumption, (2) It mentioned the worsening of household balance sheets as +86-105-832 8324

a key constraint on consumption, and specifically the importance of the property market

in stabilizing household balance sheet.

We see two questions related to the article: (1) Was this the first shot of another round

of cyclical policy loosening? (2) How important was the statement on the need to repair

the balance sheets of household?

We believe the answer to the first question is “no” if we are talking about an overall

policy stance change, and “likely” in terms of consumption policy stance change.

On overall policy stance, we are still waiting for an article which talks about April-May