The quest to understand Beijing's views on consumer spending continues. 

The latest: On August 13, China's finance ministry (MoF) said it would bring down borrowing costs for service sector firms by providing them with rebates on their interest payments.

• Curiously, authorities framed the measure – which is clearly designed to increase investment – as being an effort to boost consumption.

In this podcast, Trivium Co-founder Andrew Polk and Dinny McMahon, Head of Markets Research, discuss the idiosyncrasies of China's consumption policies.

They discuss:

• Why Beijing sees the path toward greater consumption as reliant on more investment
• Why consumption support efforts are increasingly pivoting toward services
• And why China's authorities have opted to dispense rebates on interest payments, rather than just cut interest rates outright