WITH long queues outside restaurants, crowded subway cars, and active machines in factories and on building sites, the Chinese economy is shaking off its ‘COVID’ shadow, and has gotten off to a good start in 2023.

During the week-long Spring Festival holiday, which ended last Friday, cinemas, restaurants, and tourist attractions were swamped with people eager to satisfy their pent-up consumption desires.

Cinemas nationwide sold 129 million tickets, generating 6.76 billion yuan (nearly 1 billion U.S. dollars) in revenue in the period, up 11.89 per cent year-on-year. Some 308 million domestic trips were made, with tourism revenues hitting a total of 375.8 billion yuan, up 30 per cent.

Better-than-expected holiday spending improved confidence in a services consumption recovery, CITIC Securities said in a report, noting that the catering sector is about to see a stable and sustainable rebound, and that tourism will strengthen gradually during peak seasons.

Expanding consumption has become a policy priority.

A State Council meeting on Saturday stressed the need for timely measures to promote an early recovery of consumption as the main economic driving force. Local governments have, since January, been rolling out favourable policies to improve consumer sentiment.

Shanghai, a mega-city in east China, on Sunday unveiled an action plan, including purchase tax exemptions for new-energy vehicles, and vouchers for sectors such as cultural tourism and catering. Hainan, an island province in south China, has actively promoted duty-free shopping, reporting 5.19 billion yuan in sales from January 1 to 28.

A consumption rebound is a key theme for 2023, UBS economist Wang Tao said, predicting that full-year nominal retail sales will grow 9 per cent, year-on-year.

FACTORIES IN FULL SWING
Post-holiday production is also picking up across the country, with factories in full swing.

On Saturday, the first business day after the Spring Festival holiday, construction on 136 key projects broke ground in Xi’an, capital of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.

These projects, covering everything from advanced manufacturing to modern services, are expected to have an annual output of over 150 billion yuan, and create more than 110,000 jobs.

In the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, more than 60 rotary drilling rigs were in simultaneous operation at a construction site for Changan Auto’s new factory in January. “With an investment of 6.3 billion yuan, the project will have an annual capacity of 280,000 new-energy vehicles,” according to project director Wu Kezhi.

Chongqing is planning to launch 1,123 major projects this year, with total investment up 18.5 per cent from a year earlier.

The same vigour can be seen nationwide, as local authorities are making solid efforts to resume production, bringing fresh and sustainable momentum to the economy.

Major economic powerhouses — Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shandong and Sichuan provinces — have set their 2023 growth targets at above five per cent. New measures for this year have been unveiled in local government work reports, and they are expected to boost the high-quality growth of China’s economy.

BRIGHTENED OUTLOOK
The reemerging hustle and bustle across the country has painted an encouraging picture of China’s economy after a difficult 2022.

Saturday’s State Council meeting urged efforts to promote a steady economic rebound for the beginning of the year.

The meeting underscored the need to facilitate a speedy resumption of business and production after the holiday. Timely measures will be taken to promote an early recovery, advance opening-up in a steadfast manner, and stabilise and upgrade foreign trade and investment.

Global investors and institutions have remained confident in the Chinese economy, and multiple investment banks have upwardly revised their forecasts for China’s growth rate in 2023.

Liu Linan, head of China macro-strategy at Deutsche Bank, has predicted that the Chinese economy will expand about six per cent this year, and that growth will become even steadier in 2024 as China emerges from the impacts of the three-year epidemic.

After returning to normalcy, and when financial risks tame and pro-growth reforms take effect, China’s resilience will also strengthen in the medium-to-long term, Liu said, expressing optimism about the prospects of Chinese assets.

The country’s economy has passed its most difficult moment and is expected to achieve an overall recovery and improve this year, with more market vitality unleashed and an accelerated rebound in activity, analysts have said. (Xinhua)

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China’s economic diplomacy pursues mutual benefits, win-win results

CHINA is the world’s second-largest economy, largest trader in goods, and top recipient of foreign investment.

The Chinese economy is deeply integrated with the global economy, and the country’s economic diplomacy has become an important part of major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics.

China’s economic diplomacy not only serves the development of China, but also safeguards the common interests of the international community; it pursues mutual benefits and win-win results.

“Opening up” is a key word of China’s economic diplomacy. In the past more than 20 years after China’s accession into the WTO, China’s overall tariff level has dropped to below 7.4 per cent from 15.3 per cent, much lower than what the country promised when entering the organisation.

Last year, China’s annual foreign trade value, seeing improvement in its scale, quality and efficiency, for the first time exceeded 40 trillion yuan (about $5.94 trillion). The country has remained the world’s top trading nation in goods for six years in a row.

Amid mounting global protectionism, China has made important contributions to building an open world economy with concrete actions.

In the next step, the country will steadily expand institutional opening-up with regard to rules, regulations, management and standards, further widen market access, reasonably shorten the negative lists for foreign investment access, and improve the system of pre-establishment national treatment plus a negative list for foreign investment, so as to foster a market-oriented and world-class business environment governed by a sound legal framework.

China has worked to build a globally-oriented network of high-standard free trade areas, and to promote the negotiation and conclusion of high-standard free trade agreements.

Since establishing the first pilot free trade zone (FTZ) in 2013, the country has so far set up 21 pilot FTZs and the Hainan Free Trade Port.

China will advance its free trade agreement strategy to effectively connect domestic and foreign markets and relevant resources, in terms of “expanding scope, improving quality and raising efficiency,” aiming to provide institutional support for its high-level opening-up and to serve the building of a new development paradigm.

The country has signed 19 free trade agreements with 26 countries and regions. The volume of trade between China and its free trade partners accounts for about 35 per cent of the country’s total foreign trade.

China has made joint efforts with relevant parties on the full and high-quality implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, so as to make the world’s biggest free trade agreement release more dividends.

At present, China is actively advancing its accession to high-standard economic and trade agreements such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement, which fully demonstrates the confidence of China’s economic diplomacy.

China is also joining hands with relevant parties to advance high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.

So far, China has signed over 200 BRI cooperation documents with 151 countries and 32 international organizations. A large batch of flagship projects have been put into use or are under construction, such as China-Laos Railway, Piraeus Port, Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway, Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway, Belgrade-Budapest Railway, China-Belarus Industrial Park and Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway.

China is to consider holding the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation this year, so as to inject new impetus into global development and prosperity.

China is actively pushing for closer international cooperation in development.

In 2021, the country proposed the Global Development Initiative (GDI). Aiming at building a global community of development, the GDI puts development first and the people at the center.

It advances practical cooperation in key areas including poverty alleviation, food security, COVID-19 response and vaccines, development financing, climate change and green development, industrialization, digital economy and connectivity.

The GDI puts development high on the global macro policy agenda, strengthens policy coordination among major economies, and ensures policy continuity, consistency and sustainability. Besides, it fosters global development partnerships that are more equal and balanced, forges greater synergy among multilateral development cooperation processes, and speeds up the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

More than 100 countries and many international organizations including the UN have voiced support for the initiative, and nearly 70 countries have joined the Group of Friends of the GDI.
China’s economic diplomacy always puts safeguarding the stable and smooth flow of global industrial and supply chains in a very important position and adheres to the right course of economic globalization.

It strives to promote the liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment, advance bilateral, regional, and multilateral cooperation, and boost international macroeconomic policy coordination.

It will surely make greater contributions to fostering an international environment conducive to development and creating new drivers for global growth. (People’s Daily)