Foster New Opportunities and Open Up New Horizons

Foster New Opportunities and Open Up New Horizons*

May 23, 2020

We need to take a comprehensive, dialectical and long-term view of the current economic situation, develop new opportunities in the midst of crisis, and open up new prospects in the midst of change. We need to tap China’s potential and role as the world’s largest market, clarify the strategic direction of supply-side structural reform, maintain the basic trend of steady and long-term economic growth, and consolidate the fundamental position of agriculture. We will stabilize the Six Fronts – employment, finance, foreign trade, inbound investment, domestic investment, and market expectations, and guarantee the Six Priorities – jobs, daily living needs, food and energy security, industrial and supply chains, the operation of market players, and the smooth functioning of grassroots government.

We will also ensure that all our policies and plans are implemented, and that the goals and tasks of securing a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and in eradicating absolute poverty are accomplished. This will enable the Chinese economy to brave the waves and forge ahead.

We should make a rational analysis of where we are now, be mindful of the overriding trend towards development, and view current difficulties, risks and challenges from a comprehensive, dialectic and long-term perspective. The whole of society, and market entities in particular, should be encouraged to be confident and maintain the momentum in driving the steady and long-term growth of the Chinese economy.

This is a pivotal period for transforming our growth model, improving our economic structure, and fostering new drivers of growth. The prospects for economic development are promising, but we are also confronted with difficulties and challenges brought about by a lattice of structural, institutional and cyclical problems and the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic. It can be seen that China’s economy is coming under great pressure.

We also have to face a deep recession in the global economy, a sharp contraction in international trade and investment, turbulence in international financial markets, restrictions on international exchanges, countercurrents in economic globalization, rampant protectionism and unilateralism in some countries, and rising geopolitical risks. This means we have to pursue our development in a more unstable and uncertain world.

It is important to note that the basic features of the Chinese economy remain unchanged: It has great potential, deep resilience, ample room for maneuver, and multiple policy tools. China has the world’s largest and most complete industrial system, strong production and support capacity, more than 100 million market players, more than 170 million people with higher education or professional skills, and 1.4 billion consumers, including a middle-income group of over 400 million, forming a super-large domestic market.

China is making great headway in new industrialization, informatization, urbanization, and agricultural modernization, with huge potential for investment. Its basic socialist economic system – public ownership playing the dominant role while developing together with other forms of ownership, multiple models of distribution with “to each according to their work” as the principal form, and a socialist market economy – is conducive to stimulating the vitality of market entities, unleashing and developing productive forces, promoting efficiency and equity, and achieving common prosperity.

In the future, satisfying domestic demand will be the starting point and goal of development. We will establish a complete system of domestic demand, promote innovation in science and technology and other fields, and accelerate the development of strategic emerging industries such as the digital economy, intelligent manufacturing, life sciences, health, and new materials, so as to foster new growth poles. In order to cultivate new strengths for China’s participation in international cooperation and competition, we need to ensure smooth production, distribution, circulation and consumption, and gradually form a double development dynamic with the domestic economy as the mainstay and the domestic economy and international engagement providing mutual reinforcement.

Protectionism is on the rise in today’s world, but we need to stand on the right side of history. We should uphold multilateralism and democracy in international relations, pursue development in a spirit of open and win-win cooperation, strive to make economic globalization open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial to all, and foster an open world economy. At the same time, we need to adopt a vision of safe development with the appropriate systems and mechanisms in place, shore up points of weakness, safeguard the security of industrial and supply chains, and guard against and defuse major risks.

* Main points of the speech at a joint panel discussion of CPPCC National Committee members from the economic circles during the Third Session of the 13th CPPCC National Committee.

(Not to be republished for any commercial or other purposes.)