The new normal of China’s economic development has become a hot topic around the world. The two sessions sent out clear messages that China’s economic development in generally progressing well, and that the government is determined to shift to a more sustainable model of development.

In the government work report to the National People’s Congress, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang set a target for GDP to rise by around 7 percent this year.

Many international media have recognized the strong pulse of the Chinese economy. An article in the Financial Times said China's economy shows signs of a long-awaited rebalancing; the New York Times said that by shifting to a softer growth target, the government is also signaling its intent to focus more on the quality of economic growth rather than its absolute pace.

Reuter’s columnist Peter Thal Larsen said scrapping the target would be a sign of economic maturity. The Wall Street Journal pointed out that China's economic growth is not really slowing down, and that a growth rate of 7% is still fast for a major economy.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that in 2014, China's contribution to world economic growth rate accounted for 27.8%, and the US accounted for about 15.3%.

China’s 7.4 percent economic growth in the corresponding increment has reached about $800 billion, which exceeds the annual GDP of Switzerland.

UNCTAD’s latest report shows that in 2014 China attracted about $128 billion in foreign direct investment, an increase of about 3% compared with 2013, and for the first time surpassed the United States as the foreign direct investment superpower.

The RMB is transiting from an "emerging" to a "business as usual" payment currency, said Wim Raymaekers, head of banking markets at SWIFT.

Domestic consumption with a contribution of more than 50% to the growth rate surpassed investment to become the strongest driving force of the Chinese economy in 2014. Total consumption accounted for 51.2 percent of gross domestic product growth last year, compared with 48.6 percent from investment. Net exports accounted for just 0.2 percent of GDP growth.

Chinese consumers are spending more and more money, creating ever bigger potential opportunities for global companies, said USA today.

Apple's latest earnings report has been noteworthy - the United States lost its crown to China as the world's largest mobile phone market by revenue. In the past five years, the company's revenues in China have jumped from $1 billion to $38 billion.

China shows determination and confidence in reform under the "new normal". New industries are emerging, driven by innovation. Remarkable achievements have been made in cloud computing, networking, mobile Internet, e-commerce, Internet banking, online medical, online education and so on.

American scholar Jeremy Rifkin forecast that with the construction of infrastructure and collaborative networking sharing mechanism, approaching to zero marginal cost to society will ensure China’s leadership in tertiary industrialization.

The underlying toughness, potential, and room for maneuver of China’s economy will continue to spring surprises. Even the most abstract Western economic theories struggle to explain the phenomenon. China is indeed on a promising new path of economic development.

Edited and translated from Chinese version of《走出一条经济发展的新路（钟声）》,source :People’s Daily.