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Tourists taste dumplings fresh from the jar during an ice-catching festival in Harbin, northeast China’s Heilongjiang province, December 7, 2024. Marking the start of the ice-catching season in Harbin, the fifth ice-catching festival kicked off at the Songhua River here on Saturday. attracting crowds with an ice-collecting ceremony and performances. Photo: Xinhua
At the end of 2024, we will look back at the performance of the Chinese economy this year. China’s domestic GDP grew at an annual rate of 5.3 percent this year, 4.7 percent in the second quarter and 4.6 percent in the third quarter, with an average growth rate of 4.8 percent in the first three quarters .
Since September, as a package of incremental policies continues to bear fruit, the Chinese economy has continued to trend upward. Overall, we are confident that we will achieve our economic growth target this year.
The country’s economic performance has been hard-won. Externally, transformations around the world unseen in a century are unfolding at an accelerating pace, with global economic growth remaining sluggish and the complexity, severity and uncertainty of the external environment increasing. Domestically, domestic demand is insufficient, social expectations remain weak and there are difficulties associated with structural adjustment. The situation is serious and complex, and the task is difficult and arduous.
However, under the strong leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core, Chinese localities and government agencies are more confident and are taking solid steps to achieve results. The results underline that “the fundamentals of China’s economy and favorable conditions such as a huge market, strong economic resilience and great potential remain unchanged.”
Huge market, huge space
Markets are the scarcest resource. The modernization achieved by 1.4 billion Chinese has resulted in the addition of a new super-sized market larger than that of all developed countries combined. The new development paradigm will enable China to fully unlock its market potential and create greater demand for other countries.
When a new car rolled off the production line on November 14, China’s annual production of new energy vehicles (NEVs) surpassed the 10 million mark, becoming the first country in the world to do so. Behind this figure lies China’s robust supply and demand. In the first ten months, Chinese production and sales of NEVs grew 33 percent and 33.9 percent year-on-year, respectively.
China continues to lead the electrification and intelligence transformation of the automotive industry, which is attributed to its supply, policy support and demand advantage in the ultra-large market.
Markets provide valuable business opportunities. Take cars for example. At the end of June, China had 345 million cars, but the country’s car ownership rate per 1,000 inhabitants is less than half that of developed countries. Moreover, China’s NEV holdings are only 24.72 million, which means continued demand in the future.
Markets provide competitive advantages. China’s huge market contributes to the formation of an “economy of scale” and an “economy of size”, which generates greater profits for companies and reduces innovation costs, and also helps provide a large number of application scenarios and stimulating the large-scale application of innovations.
China leads the world in batteries, motors and electronic control technologies, while its intelligent cockpits and intelligent driving are internationally advanced. Thanks to the favorable interaction between supply and demand, the industrialization of new technologies and new products is accelerating.
Workers weld at a car manufacturer’s workshop in Qingzhou city, east China’s Shandong province. Photo: Xinhua
Strongly resilient, solid base
Resilience strengthens self-confidence. China has gotten to where it is today after overcoming all kinds of difficulties and challenges. China did not collapse as predicted by the ‘China collapse theory’, nor will it peak as predicted by the ‘China peak theory’.
Foreign trade is an important barometer in this respect. In the first ten months of the year, China’s foreign goods trade increased by 5.2 percent year-on-year, reaching a new high compared with the same historical period. The improvement in the quality and efficiency of the country’s foreign trade against the backdrop of shrinking external demand reflects China’s economic resilience.
This resilience stems from China’s solid manufacturing base and the advantages of its industrial chain. “Without them, we couldn’t do what we do,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said of Chinese suppliers during his third visit to mainland China this year, as more than 80 percent of Apple’s 200 major suppliers have set up factories in China.
China has the most extensive industrial categories in the world and a well-rounded industrial system, with the size of its manufacturing industry leading the rankings for fourteen years in a row.
The high-quality, intelligent and green development of the manufacturing sector continues to strengthen the stability of the country’s industrial and supply chain. In the first three quarters, the manufacturing industry contributed 32.2 percent to the country’s economic growth, an increase of 11.2 percentage points. China climbed to eleventh place in the rankings of the most innovative economies in the world. The foundation is solid and risks and challenges are not to be feared.
Resilience also comes from excellent policy adjustments.
The country has strengthened countercyclical adjustments, accelerated the implementation of key national strategies and the development of impact capabilities in key areas, while supporting large-scale equipment upgrades and consumer goods trade-in policies with robust measures, thereby promoting the stabilization of the economy. real estate market and stimulating the capital market. The government has also proposed a package of measures to remove the debt risks of local governments. This year, a series of existing policies continue to have an impact and step-by-step policies are effectively implemented, jointly stabilizing the economy.
Farmers use machines to harvest tomatoes in Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, northwest China, on August 2, 2024. Photo: VCG
Huge potential, strong momentum
China’s economy has enormous potential and many advantages and favorable conditions to maintain long-term development momentum. China has been the world’s second largest economy for many years, but still has enormous development potential in terms of per capita population and structure.
China’s GDP per capita remains relatively low, and the amount of infrastructure per capita is only 20 to 30 percent of that of developed countries. In 2023, China’s urbanization rate, which measures the ratio of the number of permanent urban residents to the total population, reached 66.2 percent at the end of 2023. Estimates show that each percentage point increase in the urbanization rate could generate 1 trillion yuan ($137.55 billion). of investments.
Currently, both China’s budget deficit and government debt are low, and the country’s policy instruments remain well stocked.
The potential also lies in basic resources. China’s human resources in science and technology rank first in the country, and the average length of education of newcomers to the labor market has increased to 14 years, transforming the demographic dividend into a talent dividend. Moreover, overall sufficient social capital, enormous space for highly efficient land use and the enormous unleashing of the potential of digital elements ensure solid grassroots support.
This potential also comes from the huge market. The population of over 1.4 billion people and over 400 million middle-income people support a large-scale, diverse and enormous domestic market. Accelerating the construction of a unified national market will improve the overall efficiency of economic operations and continuously unleash the potential of domestic demand.
Overall, China is a country with a vast territory, a large population, and unbalanced and uncoordinated development. This is a shortcoming, but also represents potential and a driving force for future development.
Stimulating vitality and building synergy through reforms is essential for continuously unlocking development potential.
From implementing regulations for fair competition assessments, accelerating the legislative process of the Private Economy Promotion Law and formulating normal communication mechanisms between governments and companies, to releasing a new national negative list for foreign investment and lifting all market access restrictions for foreign investments. investors in the manufacturing sector, China’s reforms in key areas continue to deepen this year, and progress in high-level opening-up is being made in a profound manner.
The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China adopted the resolution of the CPC Central Committee on further deepening reforms to promote Chinese modernization.
Driven by the reform of the economic system, China is correspondingly promoting reforms in other areas, and its internal development momentum and vitality will continue to increase. Assessing gives you a clear understanding of the situation and allows you to move forward better.
While some major economies face low growth rates and high inflation this year, China is expected to achieve its economic growth target of around 5 percent and continue to contribute about 30 percent to global economic growth. This stable performance underlines the fact that the Chinese economy will continue to follow a positive trajectory in the long term.
The story was originally published on the front page of the People’s Daily on December 8, 2024
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