The Connotation and Implementation of Demand-Side Management: From the Perspective of “Macro-Policy Trinityâ€

As an important strategic direction of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan, strengthening demand-side management aims to build an effective system to boost domestic demand, establish a complete demand system, and develop a robust domestic market, thereby promoting the realization of the growth goals by 2035 and the second centenary goal by the mid-21st century. Different from traditional aggregate demand management, demand-side management introduces a host of new attributes pertaining to its regulatory scope, regulatory goal, regulatory strategy, regulatory target, and regulatory instrument. Demand-side management does not seek to replace aggregate demand management; rather, both assume pivotal roles in macro-control and their coordination are of utmost importance. In real scenarios, demand-side management should synergize with supply-side structural reform, which is helpful to foster a new development pattern with domestic circulation as the mainstay and domestic and international circulations reinforcing each other. To effectively implement demand-side management, it is imperative not to replicate the approach used in aggregate demand management. Only by further innovating and improving the macro-control system with Chinese characteristics and coordinating the stability policy, growth policy and structural policy can the demand-side management be truly implemented under the new framework of “Macro-policy Trinity.â€