Standing Committee Member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and Chairman of Anta Group, Ding Shizhong: Innovative Sports Consumption Support Policies Deepen Cross-Industry Integration

As a witness and practitioner in China’s sports industry, Ding Shizhong, a Standing Committee member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Vice Chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and Chairman of Anta Group, focused his suggestions this year on expanding domestic demand and building a strong sports nation, strengthening the innovative role of private enterprises, and leading youth mental health development through sports.

The Central Economic Work Conference proposed “adhering to domestic demand-led growth and building a strong domestic market.” Ding Shizhong believes that the sports industry, as a green and sunrise industry, can drive the development of related supply chains and help expand domestic demand. However, current issues such as insufficient effective sports consumption supply and limited consumption scenarios still exist. Therefore, he recommends improving and innovating sports consumption support policies, deepening cross-industry integration of “sports+” initiatives, promoting deep collaboration across the industry chain, further enriching consumption supply, developing multi-group and multi-scenario sports services, and advancing the integration of sports and health to systematically activate sports consumption.

Private enterprises are on the front lines of the market, directly facing user needs. They possess agile response capabilities, rich application scenarios, and practical engineering advantages. They are not only important forces in technological R&D investment but also key carriers in transforming results and industrial applications. They play a vital role in promoting the industrialization of scientific and technological achievements and developing new productive forces.

Ding Shizhong suggests further establishing a normalized mechanism for private enterprises’ participation in major national scientific and technological tasks, improving national-level recognition and incentive systems for innovation contributions; issuing practical guidelines for building innovation consortia, addressing shortcomings in proof-of-concept and pilot platforms; and breaking down development barriers through multiple measures to continue promoting private enterprises as important participants in the national innovation system and main forces in transforming achievements.

In February this year, the Ministry of Education held a “Health First” work deployment meeting, proposing to deeply implement the student physical fitness enhancement plan and focus on improving students’ physical health. Regarding youth mental health, Ding Shizhong recommends continuously deepening the integration of “sports + psychology,” improving mechanisms to ensure physical education hours, enriching high-quality sports practice to alleviate urban-rural resource imbalance, and strengthening school-family-community collaboration systems to build a comprehensive mental health defense for youth, making sports a “guardian” of their physical and mental well-being.

“Private enterprises always resonate with national development. This year’s two sessions’ proposals are not only practical reflections on high-quality development of the sports industry but also active responses to national strategies such as expanding domestic demand, technological independence, and Healthy China, as well as related livelihood issues. In the future, Anta will continue to focus on its core business, deepen innovation, and actively fulfill social responsibilities. Through concrete actions, we will contribute to building a strong sports nation and a Healthy China, injecting more private enterprise strength into the high-quality development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period,” said Ding Shizhong.

(Reporter: Zhong Tian, Securities Times)

(Edited by: Wen Jing)