Chinese economy enjoys bright prospects

By pursuing progress while ensuring stability and promoting high-quality development, China took solid steps in its new journey to build a modern socialist country in all respects and maintained overall economic and social stability in 2022.

Changes in the world, the times and history are unfolding today in ways that have never happened before, posing challenges that must be taken seriously by humanity.

Through the joint efforts of the entire nation, China responded to its challenges calmly and safeguarded macroeconomic stability.

China has unveiled 33 policies to further stabilize the economy, accelerated the establishment of a unified domestic market, refunded outstanding and newly added value-added tax credits, and did a good job in providing jobs at the community level in urban and rural areas for college graduates.

Under the strong leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, all local authorities and government departments responded to the COVID-19 pandemic while promoting economic and social development, and pursued development while ensuring security. China made economic stability its top priority, pursued progress while ensuring stability, took temporary steps and institutional measures, and ensured coordination of and synergy between various policies that produced effects early on. As a result, China saw good momentum in its economic recovery and made progress in people’s livelihoods.

While inflation across Europe and the U.S. hit a record high, China kept prices generally stable, with the consumer price index growing 2 percent year on year in the first three quarters. The country reinforced its foundations of food security on all fronts, ensured a stable and safe energy supply, withstood the pressure and attained positive economic growth.

The latest data showed that the value-added industrial output reported by enterprises above designated size, or those with annual revenue from principal business of at least 20 million yuan ($2.88 million) in China expanded 5 percent year on year in October this year, up 0.2 percentage points from the third quarter.

In the first 10 months of this year, the country’s total general trade rose 13.3 percent, maintaining double-digit growth. China’s third-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 3.9 percent compared with a year earlier, 3.5 percentage points higher than in the second quarter.

With its GDP exceeding 114 trillion yuan, China’s economy is like a colossal vessel sailing steadily in the ocean. With a population of more than 1.4 billion, a labor force of over 900 million, a talent pool of 220 million people, and an urbanization rate of permanent residence of 64.7 percent, China boasts a huge market, a huge talent dividend, and promising investment prospects.

China’s economy boasts strong resilience. The country is upgrading the world’s most comprehensive industrial system and is continuously expanding the largest online retail market in the world. Over 160 million registered market entities in the country compete with each other and grow together.

China is a magnet for business ventures, with an average of 24,800 new businesses opening daily and over 1 million returning overseas students taking up innovative careers and launching start-ups in their motherland every year.

The country is a major consumer, with about 300 million parcels handled daily and annual online retail sales reaching about 13.1 trillion yuan. It is also a major center for innovation, with spending on annual research and development (R&D) ranking second in the world.

Per capita GDP in China, the world’s most populous country, has surpassed $12,000, making it the world’s consumer market with the greatest potential. As the largest developing country in the world, China is undergoing rapid development of a new type of industrialization, IT application, urbanization and agricultural modernization, which all serve to generate strong domestic demand.

China is accelerating the establishment of a new development paradigm with domestic circulation as the mainstay and domestic and international circulations reinforcing each other, which ensures great flexibility in development and is an important way to achieve the long-term balance between maintaining stable growth and guarding against risks.

China refrains from adopting a deluge of strong stimulus policies. When the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was at its worst in 2020, it refused to flood the economy with excessive money supply.

China also unleashes great creativity. Over the past decade, the country’s R&D spending intensity increased from 1.91 percent to 2.44 percent. It has moved up to 11th place in the 2022 Global Innovation Index from 34th a decade ago. It has made a series of achievements in frontier fields, including manned spaceships, deep sea and deep earth probes, and quantum information, as well as in emerging technologies such as supercomputers, new energy technology and biomedicine.

China is currently pursuing higher-level opening up and development. The country established its first pilot free trade zone (FTZ) in Shanghai in 2013. Now, there are 21 pilot FTZs in China, contributing 17.3 percent to its imports and exports and 18.5 percent to the total foreign investment into the country. These pilot FTZs have seen successful practice in 278 cases of innovation in institutional reform promoted at the national level or in specific regions.

China has seen steady progress in the construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port and further shortened the negative list for foreign investment. The country has successfully hosted a number of major expos, including the China International Import Expo, the China International Fair for Trade in Services, the China Import and Export Fair, and the China International Consumer Products Expo, and vigorously promoted high-quality cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative.

China’s faith in and its commitment to reform and opening up will not waver. China has explored new horizons and pilot grounds for opening up, and built a new pattern of all-around and high-level opening up. China will become one of the most attractive investment destinations in the world.