The first half of the 14th Five-Year Plan’s final year has passed.
How has China’s economy performed in the first half of the year?
Gross domestic product grew by 5.3% year-on-year, a rate higher than the same period last year and the full-year level, ranking among the top of major economies; the scale of imports and exports reached a record high for the same period in history, with exports growing by 7.2% year-on-year… Amid global economic turbulence, China’s economic performance has shown steady progress, demonstrating strong vitality and resilience.
How to view the current situation?
On July 23, it was emphasized: “At present, China’s economic operation still faces many risks and challenges. It is necessary to correctly grasp the situation, enhance awareness of potential dangers, adhere to bottom-line thinking, make good use of development opportunities, potential and advantages, and consolidate and expand the momentum of economic recovery and improvement.”
What are the next steps for economic work?
A meeting held on July 30 pointed out: “Maintain policy continuity and stability, enhance flexibility and foresight, focus on stabilizing employment, enterprises, markets, and expectations, effectively promote the dual domestic and international circulation, strive to complete the annual economic and social development goals and tasks, and achieve a successful conclusion to the ’14th Five-Year Plan’.”
Planning is one part, implementation is nine parts. All regions and departments should, with a stronger sense of responsibility and more proactive actions, concentrate on promoting high-quality development, consolidate and expand the momentum of economic recovery and improvement, and strive for a decisive victory in the “14th Five-Year Plan”.
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To do a good job in the current economic work, we must first correctly grasp the situation, recognize development advantages, and maintain strategic focus.
Looking around the world, unilateralism and protectionism are rising, and the complexity, severity, and uncertainty of the external environment are increasing.
Examining ourselves, China’s economy has a stable foundation, many advantages, strong resilience, and great potential. The supporting conditions and basic trend of long-term improvement have not changed.
China’s future holds both opportunities and challenges.
The key to consolidating and expanding the momentum of economic recovery and improvement lies in concentrating on handling our own affairs well and firmly grasping the initiative in development.
“Village evenings” have ignited rural cultural tourism, the “Super League” has leveraged ticket-based economies, the ice and snow economy and flower-viewing economy are gaining heat, and service consumption highlights are emerging; domestic trends and traditional attire frequently “break through,” and new forms of consumption are thriving… In the first seven months, total retail sales of consumer goods increased by 4.8% year-on-year; in the first half of the year, the contribution of final consumption expenditure to GDP growth reached 52%, making domestic demand the main driver and stabilizing anchor of economic growth.
Being led by domestic demand and internally circulatable is a unique advantage of a large economy. The more complex the external environment, the more we must base our development strategy on strengthening the domestic cycle and take multiple measures to expand domestic demand.
Stimulate potential consumption.
Enable residents to “dare to consume.” Enhance consumption capacity by promoting reasonable growth in wage income, broadening channels for property income, and increasing farmers’ income.
Enable residents to “be willing to consume.” Innovate diverse consumption scenarios, improve supply in cultural tourism, catering, leisure, health, sports, and other fields, and continuously optimize the consumption environment.
Deeply implement actions to boost consumption, and while expanding commodity consumption, cultivate new growth points in service consumption. The demand potential of the ultra-large market will continue to be released.
Expand effective investment.
Renovating old residential areas, building underground pipe networks, promoting urban greening, improving public service facilities… New urbanization holds vast scenarios for “investing in people.” For every 1 percentage point increase in China’s urbanization rate, it can generate over 200 billion yuan in new consumer demand annually and拉动trillion-yuan scale new investment demand.
Whether it is “high-quality promotion of ‘dual key’ construction” or “high-quality urban renewal,” it will better play the key role of investment and provide strong support for stabilizing growth, adjusting structure, cultivating momentum, and benefiting people’s livelihoods.
To consolidate and expand the momentum of economic recovery and improvement, we must also make good use of development opportunities and respond to the uncertainty of the external environment with确定性opening up.
In the first seven months, the total value of goods imports and exports increased
