The Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau recently released a package of policies aimed at stimulating consumption. Among them, the "Notice on Applying for Beijing International Consumption Environment Construction Funding Projects" supports the creation of internationally-friendly business districts (venues), international consumption scenarios and service projects, as well as enhancing international service efficiency. The "Notice on Applying for Pilot Funds for New Consumption Formats, Models, and Scenarios" targets three cutting-edge areas: debut economy, diversified consumption scenario innovation, and cross-border IP integration. Both special policies offer maximum subsidies of up to 20 million yuan for individual projects.
The Notice on Applying for Beijing International Consumption Environment Construction Funding Projects focuses on three key directions: supporting the creation of internationally-friendly business districts (venues), with rewards of up to 3 million yuan for optimizing multilingual signage, foreign card payment, tax refund for overseas visitors, luggage storage, and other international service capabilities in key locations like business districts, graded scenic spots, and comprehensive transport hubs; supporting the creation of international consumption scenarios and service projects, encouraging enterprises to develop landmark consumption projects focusing on themes such as intellectual property (IP), digital, green, smart, cultural tourism, sports, and domestic trends; supporting enterprises to install innovative convenience facilities with integrated functions like process integration and information verification to enhance international service efficiency, with subsidies of up to 20 million yuan; and supporting the expansion of tax-free sales for overseas visitors, offering rewards of up to 1 million yuan per quarter to eligible tax refund enterprises.
In recent years, as Beijing's construction as an international consumption center city continues to deepen, the international consumption environment has significantly improved. The Municipal Commerce Bureau stated that the implementation of these pilot policies will effectively stimulate innovation vitality among market entities, further enrich the supply of high-quality goods and services, create a more convenient and comfortable consumption environment, and help expand inbound consumption and the construction of an international consumption center city.
Beyond enhancing the international consumption environment, Beijing is also accelerating the cultivation of new consumption formats, models, and scenarios. As a pilot city for the "Three News," Beijing has received strong financial support and is expected to receive a total of 400 million yuan in central government funds over two years. This funding will be specifically used to encourage innovation in consumption formats, models, and scenarios. To this end, the Municipal Commerce Bureau issued the "Notice on Applying for Pilot Funds for New Consumption Formats, Models, and Scenarios," directing substantial financial support precisely towards three key areas representing future consumption trends.
In the field of debut economy, the policy encourages the creation of "debut centers" integrating brand display, first shows, and experiences; rewards commercial entities that introduce high-energy-level stores such as Asian or Chinese debut stores; and supports leading brands in opening high-energy-level debut stores and holding debut/first show events in Beijing. The aim is to improve the debut economy service system and form a new debut economy ecosystem where renowned brands, commercial entities, and fashion events interact and empower each other.
In the area of scenario innovation, the focus is on the diversified integration of consumption spaces and business format renewal. Traditional malls and business districts can receive support to expand functions like cultural, artistic, sports, and technology experiences; parks, cultural and creative parks, and disused factory areas are also encouraged to improve commercial facilities, creating new integrated consumption scenarios such as "exhibition + consumption," "culture + consumption," "tourism + consumption," "sports + consumption," and "waterfront + consumption." Developing new service consumption formats like leisure camping, new performance spaces, and home services is also supported.
The field of cross-border collaborations between high-quality consumption resources and well-known IPs represents a highly forward-looking layout. The policy not only supports the development of IP derivative products, opening themed stores, and creating "IP+" consumption scenarios like theme parks, trendy fashion theme blocks, and immersive technology experience halls, but also explicitly encourages the use of technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and robotics to create immersive "AI + consumption" scenarios such as VR shopping, AR try-on, and metaverse experiences, outlining a blueprint for future business forms.
For six types of reward-based projects—including debut centers, debut store cluster centers, leading brands opening debut stores, debut/first show events, developing new IP products, and "IP theme stores, concept stores, co-branded stores"—the policy sets clear qualification thresholds, adopting a "meet-the-standard-and-get-rewarded" system. For instance, newly opened eligible brand debut stores or IP theme stores can receive a one-time reward of 1 million yuan if their main business revenue reaches 3 million yuan within six months of opening. For six other types of projects—constructing multi-format integrated scenarios, developing new formats and models, hosting key activities "entering business districts, blocks, and scenic spots," building foreign trade premium product exhibition and sales centers and shopping clusters, cultivating "IP+" new consumption scenarios, and creating "AI + consumption" scenarios—subsidies will be provided based on up to 50% of the approved actual investment, with the maximum subsidy for a single project reaching 20 million yuan.