China's efforts to boost consumer spending to stimulate the economy amid the financial crisis should be made a long-term strategy to achieve sustained economic growth, a political advisor has proposed.

China's consumer spending has been declining over the past ten years, when the economy is either overheating or contracting, Xu Shanda, former vice director of the State Administration of Taxation, told a plenary meeting of the country's top political advisory body.

"There is more than the economic cycle behind the falling consumer spending," said Xu, also a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

He said the market economy would lead to an income gap that suppresses spending, as high-income people tend to invest than consume while low-income people don't have much purchase power to spend more.

The decline in new jobs and consumer spending, which was coupled with increases in the society's wealth in China over the past 10 years, is another testimony to the trend, he explained.

He urged the country to address such imbalances under the market-oriented economy.

China should narrow the country's income gap to stimulate consumer spending, he said.

He advised the government to compile income statistics of different groups and routinely announce these figures, making such figures as important as targeted GDP growth and energy efficiency in evaluation of local governments.

He also suggested changing the strategy of "keeping prices of farm produce stable" into "working to moderately increase prices of farm produce in the long run" to enhance farmers' income and narrow income gap.

He said the country should elevate the proportion of social security taxes to GDP up to more than 10 percent; as such taxes are collected to be exclusively dedicated to the social security fund. He did not give the current proportion.

(Xinhua News Agency March 8, 2009)