Political advisers put economy in focus for 2022

People visit the 4th China International Import Expo in East China's Shanghai on Nov 5, 2021. [Photo/Xinhua]

China's national political advisers are looking forward to the country's economy in the year ahead during the ongoing two sessions.

China has set its economic growth target at around 5.5 percent in 2022 after its GDP expanded 8.1 percent to 114.37 trillion yuan ($18 trillion) last year. Wang Yiming, former deputy head of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said a growth target of around 5.5 percent reflected the government's confidence in economic growth this year.

"It would be a remarkable achievement for China, as an economy with a GDP of over 114 trillion yuan, to maintain such growth given the complex and profound changes in the global development landscape," said Wang, who is also a national political adviser.

Yang Weimin, deputy director of the Economic Affairs Committee of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said of the 114-trillion-yuan GDP in 2021, the value made by market entities like enterprises accounted for a large portion. Currently, the number of market entities in China exceeds 150 million, of which individual industrial and commercial households have exceeded 100 million.

Workers weld components at a workshop of an automobile manufacturing enterprise in Qingzhou, East China's Shandong province, on Feb 28, 2021. [Photo/Xinhua]

Substantial support shall be provided to the country's smaller business communities as they become more vulnerable when faced with risk, Yang noted.

China's foreign trade moved up another notch in 2021, exceeding $6 trillion for the first time.

In Yang's view, China's foreign trade maintained rapid growth last year partly because many major economies were still mired in the pandemic and their production capacity has not yet fully recovered.

If the pandemic situation in these major economies is better controlled this year, with production capacity restored and external demand weakening, then China's foreign trade growth rate is expected to decline accordingly.

Against the background of the normalized development of foreign trade, Liu Shijin, deputy director of the Economic Affairs Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said the growth rate of foreign trade may slow down, adding China needs to pay more attention to expanding domestic demand and introduce relevant measures to deal with it.

As for the country's goal of peaking its carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, Wang Yiming emphasized carbon reduction should be carried out step-by-step. The withdrawal of traditional energy should be based on China's national conditions and safe and reliable alternatives to new energy at the same time.

In the process of realizing the "dual carbon" goal, it is necessary to prevent a rush for quick results and avoid a "one size fits all" outlook, Wang said.

Li Heyue, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and an expert in water conservancy, warned China should always ensure food security.

China has a population of more than 1.4 billion, and it is impossible for food security to completely depend on the international market, Li said.

For Li, cultivated land is the lifeblood of food production. Only by guarding the area of cultivated land can China better protect the rice bowl in the hands of the people, he said.