Breaking winds and waves, Chinese economy sails toward brighter future

Tourists have fun in a ski resort in Changji Hui autonomous prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Feb. 13, 2024. (People's Daily Online/Tao Weiming)

On the morning of March 5, the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) opened its second session in Beijing. The Chinese government work report delivered a series of impressive achievements and highlights, boosting people's confidence in the future.

These include a GDP exceeding 126 trillion yuan ($17.5 trillion), the creation of 12.44 million jobs in urban areas, a grain output of 695.4 million tons, and a 6.1 percent year-on-year increase in the per capita disposable income of residents.

This hard-earned performance bears witness to every effort, as well as the resilience and strength of the Chinese economy amidst challenges. While maintaining a strong momentum of economic growth, new industries, business models, and growth drivers have expanded rapidly, injecting innovation and vitality into the Chinese economy, and providing a solid foundation for high-quality development.

New industries experienced rapid growth. Industries are the foundation of the economy.

In recent years, traditional industries in China have accelerated their transformation and upgrading, while strategic emerging industries have flourished. The future industries are being planned in an orderly manner.

Therefore, time-honored brands have been rejuvenated, new entities are full of vitality, and green industries are developing rapidly. This contributes to a more solid and powerful pace towards high-quality development.

Hosts sell cherry tomatoes via livestreaming in a greenhouse in Zhihao village, Gaotai county, Zhangye, northwest China's Gansu province. (People's Daily Online/Wang Jiang)

Today, dozens of quantum enterprises have gathered along Yunfei Road in the Hefei National High-Tech Industry Development Zone in east China's Anhui province; in the Optics Valley, or East Lake High-tech Development Zone in Wuhan, central China's Hubei province, a cluster of optoelectronic information industry has reported a total value of over 500 billion yuan.

A group of high-end, intelligent, and green new pillar industries are rapidly emerging, showing China's significant progress made in the development of a modern industrial system and accumulating strong momentum for the country's economic development.

New business models have ignited new vitality. During the just-concluded Spring Festival holiday, Yabuli Ski Resort in northeast China's Heilongjiang province welcomed a daily average of over 130,000 visitors, while the ice and snow park in Zhaosu county, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region was filled with laughter and joy. The new business forms combining winter tourism, cultural tourism and winter sports have become new consumption trends.

In recent years, there has been accelerated development in the integration of urban and rural cultural tourism, as well as the emergence of live-streaming e-commerce, social e-commerce, instant retail, and cross-border e-commerce. These continuous innovations of new business models, forms, and scenarios have further stimulated the potential of consumption.

Last year, the contribution of final consumption expenditure to China's economic growth reached 82.5 percent, and the added value of the services sector accounted for 54.6 percent of the country's GDP. Consumption played as a robust engine, and the economic structure continued to optimize, which fully demonstrates the high quality of the Chinese economy.

New growth drivers have built new advantages. Developing new quality productive forces is an intrinsic requirement and an important focus of promoting high-quality development.

Cell packs for new energy vehicles are assembled in an intelligent workshop of a power battery enterprise in Hefei, east China's Anhui province. (People's Daily Online/Zhang Min)

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for focusing on high-quality development as the top priority and developing new quality productive forces according to local conditions when he participated in a deliberation with fellow lawmakers from east China's Jiangsu province during the second session of the 14th NPC.

China has made significant progress in the development of high-end equipment such as aircraft engines, gas turbines, and fourth-generation nuclear power units. Innovation achievements in cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum technology continued to emerge.

China's scientific and technological innovation has achieved new breakthroughs, with fruitful results made in the research and development of core technologies in key fields. The country's ability to drive development through innovation is continuously improving.

Accelerating the development of new quality productive forces will undoubtedly provide strong impetus and support for high-quality development, continuously enhancing the momentum and resilience of economic growth.

To understand the overall trend of the Chinese economy, it is important to consider both the short-term situation and long-term momentum, as well as focus on both the quantity of growth and the quality of development.

China's economic performance in 2023, as reflected by new industries, business models, and growth drivers, not only indicated the growth and quality of the Chinese economy, but also proved that the fundamental trend of the economic recovery and long-term positive outlook has not changed and will never change.