BEIJING: China will focus on promoting high-quality development in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) period and beyond, which not only concerns the overall situation of the country’s socialist modernization drive but also generates great impetus to pandemic-battered world economy.
At just-concluded “two sessions,” lawmakers adopted the Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035, mapping out a blueprint for the next five to 15 years to guide the country’s march toward modernization, with high-quality development remaining the theme.
From quantity to quality:
China will shift the focus from setting quantitative economic indicators to pursuing high-quality and more sustainable development, that is more environmentally friendly, more people-centered and more innovative.
Pursuing the high-quality development path calls for adhering to the people-centered approach and upholding new development philosophy of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development. Emerging from the epidemic-induced slump, China became the only major economy to attain positive growth in 2020, with its gross domestic product (GDP) increasing by 2.3 percent year on year to cross the 100-trillion-yuan threshold.
China set a modest economic growth target of over 6 percent year on year in 2021, with more efforts on reform, innovation, and high-quality development, according to the government work report.
Zhang Liqun, a research fellow with the Development Research Center of the State Council, noted that the primary goal of economic development is not to seek a nice-looking GDP figure but to raise the quality of the growth and ensure people’s well-being.
Without setting an explicit economic growth target for the next five years, China will keep its economy running within an appropriate range and set annual economic targets in light of actual circumstances, according to the outline. Analysts noted that by setting flexible growth targets, China will focus on high-quality growth and deep structural issues such as unleashing domestic demand and raising innovation capacity, instead of chasing after quantitative expansion. IMF spokesperson Gerry Rice said that IMF welcomes China’s continued commitment to medium-term reform to strengthen what he called as “high-quality, more consumption-driven growth”
Innovation is the primary driving force behind development.
China will pursue innovation-driven growth and make breakthroughs in key and core technologies to achieve high-quality development. The outline has charted the course for China’s sci-tech development, showing China’s confidence and resolve in breaking bottlenecks and enhancing independent innovation.
The country’s R&D spending is expected to grow by over 7 percent annually in the next five years, according to the outline.
People-centered approach:
China is always committed to the people-centered philosophy of development and strives to further improve people’s livelihoods through pursuing high-quality development. China’s socialist modernization emphasizes people-oriented development, as evidenced by the country’s arduous efforts to eradicate poverty, its COVID-19 containment measures that always put people’s health and safety first and the development blueprint and goals that aim to meet people’s aspiration for a better life. – Agencies
