Beijing to bolster green consumption with coupons

Beijing will offer vouchers worth more than 300 million yuan ($47 million) to spur consumption in the energy-saving sector between April and September this year.

"As Beijing has been making efforts to accelerate its steps to build itself into an international consumption center, a series of 20 new policies will be carried out this year to boost innovation and market vitality," Guo Wenjie, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau, said on Tuesday.

At present, the bureau has carried out related events and policies including consumption promotion measures and cross-border e-commerce, he said.

The energy-saving vouchers, also known as coupons, are among the latest measures initiated by the bureau, which announced on Tuesday that the coupons will be offered on several online shopping platforms each month between April and September.

Residents of Beijing can get them online.

The first batch of coupons will be available from April 18 to 30. Around 200,000 coupons worth between 50 yuan and 400 yuan each will be given to those who want to purchase energy-saving electric appliances, including TV sets, washing machines and air conditioners.

E-commerce giant JD is one of the participants, which will cooperate with more than 70 brands－mostly electrical appliance producers－to offer more than 1,800 products online that can use the coupons for discounts or purchases.

Feng Quanpu, vice-president of JD, said it is a growing trend to speed up consumption upgrades in the energy-saving sector, especially regarding the purchase of electrical appliances.

"JD began recycling outdated electrical appliances since 2016 to ensure that the huge amount of such goods－which have become a burden after the end of their service lives－can be treated properly," Feng said.

"We have been offering services for consumers to trade in old items for new ones when purchasing electrical appliances. The old machines will be recycled back to steel, nonferrous metals, plastics and rubber via our industrial chain," he said.

According to the platform, each consumer can get six coupons with a total value of 900 yuan each month on JD.com.

Zhang Na, a Beijing resident, said she plans to buy a new energy-efficient refrigerator and she will search for coupon-friendly products when shopping.

"However, I will not buy things I don't need just because I was given the coupons. Anyhow, it's a good thing to buy products that have low power consumption to protect our earth," she said.

In addition to shopping online, consumers can also use the coupons at physical stores to buy certain items.

Since 2015, the Beijing municipal government has offered subsidies to local residents for energy-saving products covering 13 types of goods, led by electrical appliances, to spread the low-carbon consumption concept among the general public.

In the past six years, thanks to the policy, companies participating in the program have sold more than 11 million items and brought in revenue of 42 billion yuan.

The city has saved 760 million kilowatt-hours and cut carbon emissions by 522,000 tons as a result of the policy, according to the government.