BEIJING — China will further vitalize consumption with new business forms as innovative driving forces, officials said.

The country issued a guideline earlier this week on accelerating the development of consumption created by new forms of business.

The guideline is aimed at shoring up weak links in new forms of consumption, removing institutional obstacles and deepening integration of online and offline consumption, said Gao Gao, deputy secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission.

During the period of COVID-19 prevention and control, new business forms have led China to accelerate the expansion of consumption, while online consumption also surged.

In the first eight months of this year, China's online sales of physical goods grew 15.8 percent year-on-year, compared with a decline of 8.6 percent for total retail sales of consumer goods.

Meanwhile, the construction and commercialization of the 5G network will also be pushed forward, said Li Ying, a senior official with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The ministry will continuously upgrade the base stations and relevant facilities while enhancing international cooperation to accelerate 5G development, Li said.

Livestreaming e-commerce was also considered as a new engine of consumption. In the first half of the year, more than 10 million e-commerce livestreams were conducted nationwide, with more than 400,000 active livestream anchors, 50 billion viewers and 20 million items on for sale, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed.

Consumption has become an important engine of China's economic development. In 2019, consumption contributed 57.8 percent to China's economic growth.