2020 China Journal: What happened in the country this year? (3)

Positive economic growth: only major economy with positive performance in pandemic

Workers assemble control system of instrument panel at a passenger car workshop of Ningde base of SAIC Motor Corporation Ltd in Ningde, East China's Fujian province, Sept 15, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

Due to China’s swift recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the country has become the only major economy to record positive performance in 2020, with a projected 1.8- percent growth, according to a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in December. Despite a 6.8-percent year-on-year contraction in the first quarter, the Chinese economy increased by 3.2 percent in the second quarter and maintained a steady growth of 4.9 percent in the third quarter, showing a V-shaped recovery.

The report also noted that by the end of 2021, global gross domestic product (GDP) is projected to reach pre-pandemic levels, with China expected to account for over a third of world economic expansion.

These heartening figures reflecting the vitality and resilience of the Chinese economy have uplifted international agencies and foreign experts, who believe China, with a fresh development blueprint and unremitting efforts to forge a new growth pattern, will continue to drive global growth in the post-pandemic era.

To ensure the country’s economic growth remains steady in the post-pandemic era, in May the Party leadership made a strategic decision to foster a new “dual-circulation” development pattern, which focuses on the domestic market as the country’s economic mainstay with domestic and foreign markets complementing each other. The pattern marks a major move for development for the coming years.

As COVID-19 is yet to be brought under control at the global level, the world economy is likely to remain in the doldrums. The recovery of international trade and investment risks being further encumbered by the headwinds against globalization.

Against such a backdrop, cooperation is needed more than ever. The Chinese leadership has on many occasions stressed that the "dual circulation" is by no means a closed domestic loop and reaffirmed that opening up was a fundamental national policy.

According to experts, the new economic policy is a viable solution for China to build up resilience against external shocks and share its opportunities for development with the rest of the world.

"The domestic circulation and the international circulation should complement and reinforce each other as they are not an either-or relationship," said Liu Yuanchun, vice president of Renmin University of China, as quoted by Xinhua.

For more stories of China’s economic recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic, check here: Double Eleven shopping festival brings in new features to offset pandemic impact