Innovation, coordination, green development, opening up and sharing are the five cornerstones proposed by President Xi Jinping for China to secure resilient and sustainable growth.
Xi first presented these notions at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee in October, saying there is a need to guard against risks and forge new development strategies.
Xi envisions an improved economic development pattern that relies more on domestic consumption, the service sector and eco-friendly innovation. China's economic growth rate dipped to 6.9 percent 2015, a record low since the global financial crisis in 2008.
Faced with an increasing economic downward pressure amid complicated international conditions, China must readjust its economic structure while shifting the engines of growth during the 13th Five-year Plan period (2016-2020). Xi reiterated these five notions at a symposium attended by ministers and provincial governors on Monday, saying that those in key positions must bear the national strategy in mind and spare no efforts to help realize a higher standard and more balanced development.
He said at the symposium that it is crucial to cut overcapacity, promote industrial regrouping, protect the environment, reduce costs for enterprises, develop strategic emerging industries and the modern service sector, and increase the supply of public goods and services.
Although China is the world's second largest economy, the lack of innovation capability is holding it back. Scientific innovation has always progressed society, and should be made the pivot of China's economic development. The world today is still stuck in the last boom of innovation, including the Internet, holding back new major breakthroughs, thus, a strong, yet limited window of opportunity is opening up for China.
As Cannikin Law points out, any shortcoming may impede the whole structure from performing its full function. China should focus not only on economic reform, but also on cultural progress, rule of law, orderly social governance and ecological protection.
The president urged officials to stabilize short-term growth and plan for longer-term development, and regionally coordinate development to achieve a well-off society. China has been promoting supply-side structural reform since the end of 2015, which stresses both supply and demand. The people will be given more say over social wealth distribution. This sense of sharing will surely encourage the people to do their job proactively and drive innovation.
To summarize, a well-coordinated and people-oriented reform package is the prescription both for China and the world to tap growth potential.
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