It's hard to boost domestic demand

The consumer price index has declined, and the per capita disposable income has increased in the first half of the year. But white-collar workers, who are expected to be the main force to boost domestic consumption, have no extra money to spend, reflecting an awkward dilemma, says an article in Xinhua Daily Telegraph. Excerpts:

A Beijing-based young white-collar worker, named Zhou Weihua, calculated his income and spending per month and concluded that even if his salary increased 10 percent a year, his earnings could meet only his basic needs which include rent, three meals a day and transport costs. So he will have no more money left to buy anything else.

Zhou's example shows how difficult it is to boost domestic consumption.

Since the three forces that can boost the national economy - investment, exports and consumption - have not been performing well, the pressure on the slowing economy has increased.

The slowing down of the economy will eventually lead to a decline in people's disposable income and, thus, domestic consumption, leading to a vicious economic cycle.

On the market front, reports of poor quality Chinese goods have made many customers lose confidence in made-in-China products such as milk powder, and companies producing them have lost their credibility. Such incidents have further harmed China's domestic consumption.

Also, skyrocketing housing prices have left many people with no option but to give up the idea of buying a house, because most "house slaves" have to pay mortgage for more than 10 years and forget about spending money on things other than basic necessities.

Increasing people's income and maintaining a stable middle class will create the socio-economic base to boost domestic demand, which is a systematic engineering project in China now. We can start this project by improving the quality of our products to earn back consumers' confidence.

China with its 1.3 billion people is the largest market in the world, and we should stimulate the market potential as soon as possible.

Steps to make cities safer

After a series of cave-ins in several cities, many residents are asking why the cities they are so familiar with have become so unsafe, says an article in Youth Times. Excerpts:

Two people died after falling into a 10-meter-deep pit caused by a road cave-in in Harbin, Heilongjiang province. Seven such cave-ins were reported from the city in nine days, between Aug 9 and 17.

In Dalian, a high-school student was seriously injured and suffered burns after he fell into a "heated well" when a road caved in.

Our cities are becoming increasingly stranger and unsafe. Quality urban life is closely related to public facilities. And every time an extreme event like flooding or cave-in happens it jeopardizes people's life and livelihood further.

The flooding in Beijing after the July 21 thundershower exposed the deficiency of the city's drainage system, and the cave-ins in other cities point to the use of substandard materials in and poor management of urban infrastructure. Cities are becoming unsafe because of incompatible supporting facilities. If we fail to find the reasons behind incidents like the cave-ins, it will be impossible to avoid similar tragedies.

Perhaps, we should slow down a bit in our development drive to allow morality and conscience to catch up with the fancy appearance of cities. And hopefully, the authorities will set up an effective accountability mechanism to prepare for such eventualities in advance.