Original title: Directly drive consumption of more than 260 billion yuan. Sales of old-for-new home appliances exceeded 60 million units in 2024.

The head of the Circulation Development Department of the Ministry of Commerce talked about the development of my country's wholesale and retail industry in 2024.

The industry's overall development is improving, and its contribution to the economy is more prominent. From the perspective of industry added value, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2024, the added value of wholesale and retail industries was 13.8 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.5% year-on-year, accounting for 10.2% of GDP. From the perspective of industry entities, according to the fifth national economic census, the number of legal entities in wholesale and retail industries reached 10.197 million, and the number of individual business owners was 44.791 million, both of which were the highest in all industries. Judging from the number of employed people, according to the fifth national economic census, there are 53.258 million employees in the wholesale and retail industry, accounting for 12.4% of the total number of employees in the legal entity, second only to the manufacturing industry; there are 82.241 million employees in the wholesale and retail industry, accounting for 45.8% of the total number of employees in the self-employed households, ranking first among all industries.

The market is basically running smoothly, and most business formats maintain growth. From the perspective of wholesale industry, in 2024, the transaction volume of the Ministry of Commerce’s key ties to commodity market increased by 4% year-on-year, of which the transaction volume of the means of production and industrial consumer goods increased by 8.4% and 3.7% year-on-year respectively. From the perspective of retail industry, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2024, the retail sales of goods were 43.2 trillion yuan, an increase of 3.2% year-on-year. Among retail units above the limit, retail sales of convenience stores, professional stores and supermarkets maintained a growth trend, with year-on-year growth of 4.7%, 4.2% and 2.7% respectively.

Urban and rural markets remain active, and customer flow consumption has grown steadily. Urban commerce is developing steadily. In 2024, the number of passenger flows in 50 pedestrian streets and business districts nationwide, which the Ministry of Commerce focused on monitoring, increased by 5.7% year-on-year. A total of 5,188 convenient living circles in 210 cities across the country have been built in a pilot area of ​​210 cities in one quarter of an hour, 1.371 million stores have been built and renovated, more than 7.32 million people have been hired, and nearly 120 million residents have been served. County commerce is vigorous. The Ministry of Commerce continues to promote the transformation of "Thousand Collections and Ten Thousand Stores", upgrading and renovating 5,856 county and township commercial centers and 53,000 village-level convenience service stores. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2024, the retail sales of rural consumer goods were 6.7 trillion yuan, an increase of 4.3% year-on-year, 0.9 percentage points higher than that of urban areas. Rural e-commerce is booming. Business big data shows that in 2024, the national rural online retail sales increased by 6.4% year-on-year, and the online retail sales of agricultural products increased by 15.8% year-on-year.