Firm footing: Electric vehicles bound for shipment to Europe are seen at the Port of Taicang in Jiangsu Province. China is poised to contribute around one-third of global economic growth this year. — Bloomberg
DALIAN: China is poised to meet its annual growth target of around 5% this year, given strong policy stimulus and the gradual recovery in confidence and expectations, experts and global entrepreneurs have said at the recent 15th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, also known as the Summer Davos.
The world’s second-largest economy is a key source of global demand, playing a significant role in driving the world’s economic growth and offering growing opportunities for global stakeholders, they said at the event held in Dalian, Liaoning province.
Despite pressures and mounting uncertainties at home and abroad, they said they believe that China had the capabilities and conditions to deal with structural issues and foster new quality productive forces in the long run.
Peng Sen, president of the China Society of Economic Reform, said he is fully confident that China will achieve its annual growth target of around 5% this year, given the support of the adopted macroeconomic policies and the country’s accelerated push for fostering new quality productive forces.
“China’s economy is on the upswing,” Peng said at a subforum whose theme was the country’s economic outlook.
However, “the recovery process doesn’t yet have very firm foundations amid insufficient demand, still-weak expectations among the public, and uncertainties, particularly from the external environment”, he added.
Advancing reforms will be key to tackling the issues facing the economy, Peng said.
More efforts should be made to provide policies supporting the innovative development of the private sector, accelerate the push for building a unified national market, deepen market-oriented reforms of production factors such as land, capital, labour, technology and data, and address institutional improvements in the market economy system, he added.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that industrial enterprises with annual revenue of at least 20 million yuan (US$2.75mil) saw their total profits increase 3.4% year-on-year in the first five months of 2024, compared with 4.3% in the first four months.
In May, China’s industrial profits rose 0.7% year-on-year, compared with 4% year-on-year growth in April.
In an exclusive interview with China Daily, Joe Ngai, chairman of management consultancy McKinsey China, said the broader economy is still facing pressures from sluggish demand, pointing to market concern over a mismatch in supply and demand.
He said on the sidelines of the Summer Davos that more efforts are needed to improve the offering of consumer goods and services, create more jobs and increase people’s incomes.
Meanwhile, Ngai said China’s 2024 annual growth target of around 5% is achievable amid a steady recovery in confidence, and the country is poised to contribute around one-third of global economic growth. Zhang Xiaoyan, associate dean of Tsinghua University’s PBC School of Finance, said the economy is gradually shaking off the impact of Covid-19. — China Daily/ANN
