Beijing Plans To Become A Centre of Global Consumption and A City of Ice and Snow

On 8 February, the 2022 Beijing Media Center held a press conference for the Construction of Beijing As A Global Consumption Center.

According to the statistics released by the Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau, in 2021, the total consumption, service consumption, and total retail sales of consumer goods of the city increased by 11%, 13.4%, and 8.4% year on year, respectively. The consumer market had generally recovered back to the level prior to the outbreak of COVID in 2019.

In 2021, customer flow in the 52 major commercial districts of Beijing increased by 15.1% year on year. Phase one of the Universal Beijing Resort opened in September 2021. The theme park achieved an annual avenue of 1.645 billion yuan and welcomed a total of 2.1 million tourists. During 2021, a total of 901 brands have entered Chinese market and set up their first stores (including flagship stores) in Beijing, 4 times more than that in 2019.

In 2022, Beijing’s total consumption will grow by around 7.5% year on year. Beijing will also further improve the classification and categorization standards and evaluation system of the commercial districts, aiming to create 2 to 3 world-class commercial districts of hundred-billion scale in the city by 2025.

The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics will make winter sports known to Beijing people quicker than ever. It is expected that in 2022, the number of people who play winter sports in Beijing will reach 10 million.

The Winter Olympics requires Beijing to build many world-class winter sports facilities, including: “Bing Sidai”--- Beijing National Speed Skating Oval, “Xue Ruyi”--- National Ski Jumping Center and “Xue Youlong”--- National Sliding Center, etc. Beijing now has 49 standard ice rinks that are above 1,800 square meters, outperforming the goal set for 2022. At the same time, technologies related to ice and snow have improved much. In the future, Beijing will utilize its advantages as the city of two Olympics to hold more international, national and youth winter games.

| Photo Credit: 2022 Beijing Media Center