China's economic development is currently at a critical stage of transformation and upgrading. Easing the structural imbalance between strong supply and relatively weak demand has become a central task in advancing high-quality growth characterized by both improved quality and reasonable expansion in scale. In terms of economic operations, the strong supply and relatively weak demand essentially reflect a dynamic mismatch in the supply-demand structure.

China's supply system, supported by a comprehensive industrial system and steadily improving technological innovation capabilities, has built up substantial production capacity. However, effective demand — particularly domestic final consumption and high-quality investment — has not yet been fully unleashed. As a result, existing supply has not been sufficiently absorbed or matched by demand, thus constraining the full release of the economy's growth potential.

Addressing this challenge requires coordinated efforts on both the supply and demand sides, fostering a virtuous cycle in which each reinforces the other. In anchoring policy around the strategic priority of expanding domestic demand in the new stage of development, policymakers should focus on upgrading the level and quality of demand as a key breakthrough point. By enabling supply to create demand and demand to guide supply, China can accelerate the formation of a higher-level dynamic balance between supply and demand, thereby injecting sustained momentum into high-quality economic development.

Income distribution

Household consumption is the cornerstone of domestic demand, while income is a prerequisite for consumption. Deepening income distribution reform therefore represents a fundamental solution to insufficient domestic demand. Efforts should focus on improving people's livelihoods alongside development, balancing the goals of "making the pie bigger" and "sharing it fairly".

While maintaining steady economic growth, China should gradually raise the proportion of the primary distribution of income that goes directly to wages and salaries, and expand the size of the middle-income group, thereby strengthening the foundation of household consumption capacity.

At the same time, the social safety net should be further strengthened by enhancing the supply of essential public services such as healthcare, eldercare, education and housing, while improving the multitiered social security system. These measures would reduce precautionary household savings and boost both confidence and willingness to buy goods and services.

In addition, policies should focus on increasing incomes among low and middle-income groups. Measures such as vocational skills training, the comprehensive advancement of rural vitalization, and stronger support for small and medium-sized enterprises can broaden income channels and enhance the consumption capacity of these groups, ensuring that consumption growth rests on a solid livelihood foundation.

Unlocking potential

Consumption serves as a long-term driver of economic growth. Stimulating and creating diversified consumption demand is therefore a key lever for expanding domestic demand.

On the one hand, China should stabilize and upgrade big-ticket consumption by promoting the replacement and upgrading of traditional consumer goods such as automobiles, home appliances and home furnishings. Improving policy support for trade-in programs and guiding consumption toward greener, smarter, and higher-end products can unlock the latent potential of traditional consumer markets.

On the other hand, new consumption growth drivers should be actively cultivated. The development of emerging consumption models — such as digital, green, health-related and cultural consumption — should be accelerated. By integrating digital technologies with everyday services, new consumption scenarios can be created, including smart homes, immersive entertainment and personalized health management.

Meanwhile, optimizing the consumption environment remains essential. Strengthening consumer protection mechanisms, improving product quality standards, and fostering a safe and reliable consumption environment will encourage people to spend with greater confidence and willingness.

More effective investment

Investment serves as a crucial bridge linking current demand with future supply. Unlocking potential investment demand can both support near-term growth and optimize the future supply structure.

China should prioritize improving the structure of investment by shifting focus from traditional infrastructure to key areas such as technological innovation, green transformation and addressing weak links in people's livelihoods. Greater investment in basic research, breakthroughs in core technologies and the construction of new infrastructure can strengthen the material foundations for scientific and technological innovation.

At the same time, expanding investment in areas such as energy conservation, emissions reduction, clean energy and the circular economy will support the transition toward green and low-carbon development. Addressing weak links in public services — through initiatives such as urban renewal, underground pipeline upgrades and rural infrastructure development — can also enhance the public services infrastructure.

In addition, efforts should be made to fully mobilize private investment by removing market entry barriers, stabilizing policy expectations and building cooperation platforms through major projects. Improved policy support will encourage private capital to participate more actively to unleash its vitality and creativity.

Using technological innovation to drive industrial upgrading represents a more advanced approach to resolving the supply-demand imbalance and achieving high-level alignment between the two.

China should vigorously develop new quality productive forces by leveraging disruptive and frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence, biomanufacturing and commercial aerospace. These innovations can foster new industries, products and business models, creating entirely new market demand and enabling supply to lead and generate demand.

At the same time, traditional industries should accelerate their transformation toward higher-end, intelligent and green development. The iterative upgrading of products and services — such as intelligent connected vehicles, green building materials and smart healthcare — can better meet people's growing demand for higher-quality lives.

Efforts should also focus on removing bottlenecks in the domestic economic cycle by building an efficient and smooth modern circulation system, reducing logistics costs across society and improving the efficiency of matching supply with demand.

Digital economy

The digital economy plays a vital role in connecting supply and demand, optimizing resource allocation and generating incremental demand. Its empowering effects should therefore be fully leveraged.

On the consumption side, technologies such as big data and AI can be used to accurately analyze consumption trends and forecast demand. This will support the innovative development of new models such as interest-based e-commerce, livestreaming e-commerce and social e-commerce, thereby energizing consumer markets.

On the industrial side, deeper application of the industrial internet, improving supply chain management and facilitating large-scale personalized manufacturing can enable the supply side to respond more sensitively to changing market demand. Meanwhile, accelerating the development of data factor markets will unlock the value of data as a new production factor, giving rise to new services, products and business models, while injecting fresh momentum into coordinated supply-demand development.

Stabilizing expectations

Stable expectations underpin steady markets, while robust confidence fuels development. Stabilizing social expectations and boosting development confidence therefore constitute essential safeguards in addressing the supply-demand imbalances.

China should maintain the continuity, stability and sustainability of macroeconomic policies, ensuring that fiscal and monetary policies work in coordination and are implemented in a targeted manner, while avoiding excessive stimulus measures. Such moves can help improve broader market sentiment.

Further deepening reform and expanding opening-up also remain crucial. Building a unified national market should be prioritized to eliminate local protectionism and administrative monopolies, as well as facilitate the free flow of goods and factors of production. Meanwhile, steadily expanding institutional opening-up will attract high-quality global resources and broaden development space.

In addition, continued efforts to improve the business environment are essential. Upholding the principle of "unswervingly consolidating and developing the public sector, and unswervingly encouraging, supporting and guiding the development of the non-public sector", protecting property rights in accordance with the law, and stabilizing long-term confidence among entrepreneurs and investors will create a favorable environment for sustained and healthy economic growth.

In essence, addressing the imbalance between strong supply and relatively weak demand represents a systemic transformation involving economic structure, institutional mechanisms and development models. Strengthening demand capacity through reforms in income distribution and the market economy system, optimizing supply structures, creating new demand through technological innovation and industrial upgrading, and enhancing supply-demand symbiotic efficiency through the digital economy and high-level opening-up will all be crucial steps.

By accelerating the formation of a new development paradigm, in which the domestic economic cycle plays the leading role while domestic and international cycles reinforce each other, China can achieve high-quality growth through a higher-level dynamic balance between supply and demand.

The writer is a researcher at the National Academy of Development and Strategy at Renmin University of China.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.