BEIJING: The past week witnessed an important event in Beijing, the fifth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The meeting, which focused on the country’s next economic development plan, has attracted more attention than usual.
The fifth plenary session adopted the proposals of the Central Committee of the CPC for the formulation of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives through the Year 2035. It is not difficult to find that the meeting deliberated not only the Economic and Social Development Plan for the next five years, but a long-rage development plan for the next 15 years until 2035. It highlighted the ambition of the current Chinese leadership to bring about a great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Indeed, China has every reason to be proud of its performance on the global economic landscape of the world in the past five years and particularly in 2020. Amid the global economic downturn that has been brought about largely by the COVID-19 pandemic, China seems to be the exception. Not only has the pandemic been under control, but has its economic recovery become stronger. The last quarter recorded a 4.9 percent increase year on year after a 3.2 percent increase in the second quarter of 2020. It is expected that by the end of 2020, the gross domestic production (GDP) will reach a record high of 100 trillion yuan.
Moreover, its unemployment rate has been under control, dropping from its peak high of 6.2 percent in June to 5.4 percent in September. Its foreign exchange reserve has been rising steadily, which reached to more than $3 trillion by the end of September. A recently released report of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that the world as a whole will experience a 4.4 percent of economic contraction while China is expected to see an economic rise of 1.9 percent, thus making it the only major economy in the world that is expected to grow.
–The Daily Mail-CGTN
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