The gold chorus is backed by a financial blood transfusion: officially called “stable increase” in consumption, which was almost $20 billion in new in exchange for the last three days.

On October 5, Chinese official published data on consumption for the first three days of the national holiday in an attempt to demonstrate that domestic demand is recovering with commercial-runs, travel and “old for new” trades. 78 focused walkways and business circles monitored by the business sector, with the same increase of 3.4 per cent and turnover of 5.3 per cent over the period 1-3 October; Consumers were sold in exchange for the old for new policies, amounting to RMB 19.630 billion, covering 3.48 million people during the same period. The figures appear to be a lively one, but they also point to a more realistic question: the important push of gold-week consumption this year is not just an increase in the population’s own spending, but a demand for co-production of fiscal subsidies, consumer vouchers and administrative promotions.

Official data indicate that the first three days were 7.45 billion yuan for cars in exchange for old and new vehicles, 6.5 billion yuan for household electricity in exchange for old and 4.9 billion yuan for digital and intelligent products. The culture and tourism sector also announced that local governments would issue more than $310 million in vouchers and subsidies for the current round of holidays and the following month, and organize more than 20,000 consumption promotion campaigns. Beijing is turning the most important travel and consumption window of the year into a centralized demand-driven one.

Such policies are not ineffective. Low-cost subsidies can advance the re-car and power exchange programmes that were originally postponed by some families, and can also provide short-term passenger flows to local businesses. The problem is that, without a significant improvement in the income expectations and balance sheets of the population, the peaks in the manufacturing of subsidies tend to be simply to move future consumption to today rather than to generate sustained growth.

This is why official “human flow” and “sales” need to be seen together with data for longer periods. In the past year, China's real estate adjustment, employment pressure and deflation risk have continued to reduce household consumption willingness; The growth in sales by “618” electric power providers in June was nearing stagnation, and several research institutions have repeatedly pointed to a continuing high trend in the population's savings. The crowded railways, attractions and malls of Gold Week do not automatically mean that consumer confidence has been restored.

Railway data further reinforce this apparent prosperity. On 1 October, 2,5204 passengers were sent by the national railway, a single-day record. While travel is real in itself, the key to economic judgement is not “how many people have gone”, but rather how much is spent per capita, whether consumption depends on preferences, whether services revenues cover costs and whether such expenditures can continue beyond the end of the season.

While Beijing has been writing “bundling domestic demand” in recent years in policy documents, policy instruments still favour project, subsidy and administrative mobilization rather than increasing the ability of households to consume in the long term through more complete social security, income distribution and public service reform. The old-fashioned replacements can stimulate the purchase of a refrigerator, a car or a mobile phone, but cannot be a substitute for dealing with uncertainty in health, old age, housing and employment.

It is therefore truly worth observing that this round of gold weeks is not about how crowded the business circle is, but about how much financial resources the Government needs to invest to maintain “stable” consumption data. As consumption growth increasingly depends on the subsidy window, so-called “inner momentum” cannot be proved by official sales alone.