National Committee Member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Ding Shizhong of Anta Group: Physical education should not be "shrunk," using sports to safeguard the physical and mental health of young people

This article is from Times Weekly, by Liu Ting.

Against the backdrop of expanding domestic demand being seen as a key driver of current economic growth, the sports industry is being given more expectations.

On March 4th, the Fourth Session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference opened in Beijing. Ding Shizhong, a standing member of the CPPCC, vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and chairman of Anta Group, prepared three proposals for the conference, focusing on releasing the potential of sports consumption, strengthening the innovative role of private enterprises, and promoting mental health development among youth through sports.

As a long-term frontline entrepreneur deeply involved in the sports industry, Ding Shizhong believes that under the macro background of the country promoting high-quality development and expanding domestic demand, the sports industry is not only an important platform for consumption upgrading but also has the potential to become a new growth point driving the coordinated development of multiple industries.

In recent years, with the popularization of the national fitness concept and the continuous enrichment of consumption scenarios such as sports events and outdoor activities, the scale of sports consumption has been steadily expanding. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China’s sports industry has grown an average of 10.3% annually, with the total scale expected to surpass 5 trillion yuan by 2025, demonstrating strong vitality and broad potential.

Focusing on releasing the potential of sports consumption and promoting high-quality development of “Sports+” models, Ding Shizhong proposed that the sports industry, as a green and sunrise industry, has great potential to drive the development of related industrial chains and become an important growth pole for expanding domestic demand. However, current issues such as insufficient effective supply of sports consumption and limited consumption scenarios still exist.

He suggests improving and innovating policies to support sports consumption to stimulate public participation. Additionally, Ding Shizhong believes that deepening the cross-industry integration of “Sports+” and promoting upstream and downstream collaboration in the industrial chain are necessary; further enriching consumption supply, developing diverse sports services for multiple groups and scenarios, and promoting the integration of sports and health (“tiyu weihe”) to systematically activate the endogenous driving force of sports consumption.

Industry insiders see the core of the “Sports+” model as breaking through single sports consumption scenarios and forming new consumption chains through industry linkage, which has been a key policy direction for the sports industry in recent years.

In February this year, the Ministry of Education held a “Health First” work deployment meeting, proposing to thoroughly implement the student physical fitness enhancement plan and focus on improving students’ physical health.

In response, Ding Shizhong pointed out that sports play an important role in alleviating mental anxiety among youth, cultivating team awareness, and enhancing psychological resilience. However, issues such as the shrinking of physical education classes, formalization of sports activities, and uneven distribution of resources between urban and rural areas still exist in the integration of sports and education.

Regarding the construction of mental health among youth, Ding Shizhong suggested continuing to deepen the integration of “Sports+” and psychology, further improving the guarantee mechanisms for physical education classes; at the same time, enriching high-quality sports practice activities to address the uneven distribution of sports resources between urban and rural areas; promoting coordinated support systems among schools, families, and society; and building a comprehensive defense line for youth mental health, so that sports can truly become an important force in safeguarding the physical and mental health of young people.

Apart from the development of the sports industry, Ding Shizhong’s other proposal focuses on the role of private enterprises in the national innovation system.

In recent years, the country has continuously emphasized technological independence and self-reliance, proposing to accelerate the cultivation and development of new quality productivity. In this process, private enterprises are regarded as an important force for technological innovation.

To strengthen the role of private enterprises as main innovators and to build a national-level innovation system, based on the important deployment of achieving high-level technological independence and developing new quality productivity, Ding Shizhong believes that private enterprises, being at the forefront of the market, directly face user needs, possess agile response capabilities, rich application scenarios, and practical engineering advantages. They are not only vital for technological R&D investment but also key carriers for transforming results and industrialization. They play an important role in promoting the industrialization of scientific and technological achievements and developing new quality productivity.

In response to urgent issues such as difficulties in channeling private enterprises into major national scientific and technological tasks, incomplete incentive systems for innovation contributions, and prominent shortcomings of pilot platforms, he offers three suggestions: First, further improve the normalized mechanism for private enterprises participating in major national scientific and technological tasks and enhance the recognition and incentive systems for innovation contributions at the national level. Second, issue practical guidelines for the construction of innovation consortia to address shortcomings in proof-of-concept and pilot platforms. Additionally, multiple measures can be taken to remove development barriers and promote private enterprises to become important participants in the national innovation system and main drivers of成果转化.