Source: Xinhua News Agency

On December 9, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a meeting to analyze and study the economic work for 2025.

The meeting summarized and analyzed this year's economic work, made a comprehensive and objective judgment on the current economic development situation, and made a series of deployments for next year's economic work, which will further strengthen the confidence of all parties in development, actively and proactively respond to difficult challenges, consolidate and enhance the positive trend of economic recovery, and lay a solid foundation for a good start to the "14th Five-Year Plan."

The main goals and tasks for economic and social development this year will be successfully completed.

2024 will be a critical year for achieving the goals and tasks outlined in the "14th Five-Year Plan."

Since the beginning of this year, faced with a more complex and intricate international and domestic environment, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, with Comrade **** at its core, has united and led the entire party and people of all ethnic groups in the country, responding calmly and implementing comprehensive measures, resulting in a generally stable and progressing economic operation. The meeting acknowledged that our country's economic strength, technological strength, and comprehensive national power continue to strengthen. New quality productivity is steadily developing, reform and opening-up are deepening continuously, risks in key areas are being resolved in an orderly and effective manner, and the protection of people’s livelihoods is solid and strong, ensuring that the main goals and tasks of economic and social development for the entire year will be successfully completed.

"Against the backdrop of a complex and severe situation, this year’s achievements in economic and social development are hard-earned, fully confirming the correctness and foresight of the Central Committee in determining the situation and making decisions," said Guo Liyan, deputy director of the Economic Research Institute of the China Macroeconomic Research Institute. The series of important judgments made by the meeting regarding this year’s economic situation will help further strengthen confidence in development and better stabilize development expectations.

Currently, our country's development faces many uncertainties and challenges. To do a good job in next year’s economic work, confidence in victory must be firm.

"Further comprehensively deepen reforms" "Expand high-level opening-up" "Implement more proactive and effective macro policies" "Expand domestic demand" "Stabilize the real estate market and stock market"... In response to next year's economic work, a series of important deployments were made by the Central Political Bureau meeting.

"The series of work deployments from the meeting adhere to the general tone of seeking progress while maintaining stability, with clear directions and practical force, better coordinating development and security, balancing the current and long-term and releasing a strong signal of unremitting promotion of high-quality development," said Guo Liyan, emphasizing the need to enhance the sense of responsibility and urgency in economic work, accelerate the implementation of a package of incremental policies, and continuously consolidate the positive trend of economic recovery and achieve the goals of the 14th Five-Year Plan with high quality.

Implement more proactive and effective macro policies.

Implement more proactive fiscal policies and moderately loose mmf policies, enrich and improve the policy toolbox, strengthen extraordinary counter-cyclical adjustments, and play a good policy "combination punch"... In terms of next year's macro policy orientation, the meeting released a clear signal of "more proactive and effective".

"Implementing more proactive and effective macro policies is based on previous successful experiences in macro regulation, and is also a scientific deployment made based on domestic and international circumstances," said Xu Guangjian, a professor at the School of Public Administration, Renmin University of China. For next year's complex domestic and international situation, the meeting proposed to "strengthen extraordinary counter-cyclical adjustments," which is conducive to further improving the foresight of macro policies and better guiding and boosting expectations.

The meeting proposed to implement more proactive fiscal policies. In this regard, Xu Guangjian believes that next year's fiscal policies will be more proactive and effective, using necessary expenditure to expand total demand and boosting internal demand to offset external uncertainties.

"Moderately loose mmf policy"; this statement from the meeting attracts attention.

"The expression of mmf policy has changed from 'prudent' to 'moderately loose,' which indicates that China continues to maintain a supportive stance in its monetary policy, keeping liquidity reasonably ample, further reducing the comprehensive financing costs for enterprises and residents, and creating a favorable monetary and financial environment for promoting continuous economic recovery," said Wen Bin, chief economist of China Minsheng Bank. This marks a return to 'moderately loose' monetary policy in China after more than a decade. From the actual running situation, mmf policy is flexibly implemented and moderately adjusted. Since the beginning of this year, the market generally feels that China's mmf policy is in a state that is slightly loose but stable.

Comprehensively expand domestic demand.

Connected with economic development on one end and social livelihood on the other, domestic demand composed of consumer and investment is an important engine for economic growth.

The meeting proposed, "It is necessary to vigorously boost consumer spending, improve investment efficiency, and comprehensively expand domestic demand," which not only reflects consistent requirements but also further highlights the clear orientation of expanding domestic demand.

Since the beginning of this year, as policies such as replacing old consumer goods have been further implemented to expand domestic demand and promote consumption, the consumer demand of residents in our country has continued to be released. In October, the total retail sales of consumer goods increased by 4.8% year-on-year, accelerating by 1.6 percentage points compared to the previous month, marking the highest growth rate of a single month since March.

"Currently, it is essential to continuously consolidate the momentum of consumer recovery, promote the recovery of consumption in autos, home appliances, and other sectors, and expand the quality of digital consumption, experiential consumption, and cultural tourism consumption, constantly releasing the potential of domestic demand to better meet the needs of the people for a better life," said Chen Lifen, a researcher at the Market Economy Research Institute of the Development Research Center of the State Council.

Investment, in the short term, is demand, while in the medium to long term, it is supply. Improving investment efficiency helps better expand domestic demand and benefit people's livelihoods.

"To improve investment efficiency, it is essential to maintain reasonable government investment intensity and further optimize the investment structure," said Xu Guangjian, emphasizing the need to leverage government investment to drive social investment and further improve various system regulations to promote the enhancement of investment efficiency through refined management.

Shape new advantages in industrial development through technology innovation.

The meeting proposed to lead the development of new quality productivity through technology innovation and to build a modern industrial system.

Since the beginning of this year, new quality productivity in china has developed steadily, and the industrial structure has continually optimized: In the first three quarters, the added value of high-tech manufacturing above a designated size nationwide grew by 9.1% year-on-year, high-tech industry investment increased by 10% year-on-year, and the output of products such as optoelectronic devices and virtual reality equipment maintained double-digit growth...

Li Wei, a副研究员 at the Institute of Industrial Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, stated that technology innovation is the core element in developing new quality productivity. The series of deployments from the meeting will further promote the deep implementation of the innovation-driven development global strategy, advance the integration of the real economy with the digital economy, and the advanced manufacturing industry with modern services, cultivating new quality productivity to form more new growth points, and continuously promoting the acceleration of the transformation between new and old driving forces.

The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party proposed to strengthen the overall planning and organization of innovation resources, and to promote the integrated development of technology innovation and industrial innovation. This meeting reiterated the emphasis on 'promoting the integration of technology innovation and industrial innovation.'

'Technology innovation is the endogenous driving force of industrial innovation, and industrial innovation is the value realization of technology innovation; both stimulate and promote each other.' Li Wei mentioned that promoting the deep integration of technology innovation and industrial innovation is a systematic project; on one hand, breakthroughs in key core technologies must be achieved, enhancing original innovation capabilities; on the other hand, efforts should be made to improve the system and mechanisms, strengthen the leading role of enterprises in technology innovation, clear the path for the industrialization of scientific and technological achievements, and vigorously promote the industrialization of these achievements.

Relying on reform and opening-up to enhance the endogenous driving force for development.

The meeting emphasized 'further comprehensively deepening reform and expanding high-level opening-up', releasing a strong signal of relying on reform and opening-up to enhance the endogenous driving force for development.

'The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party has made comprehensive deployments for further comprehensively deepening reform, determining more than 300 major reform measures, and accelerating the implementation of these reform measures is not only an important part of next year's economic work, but will also inject strong momentum into the economic and social development next year.' said Dong Yu, Executive Vice Dean of the Institute of China Development Planning at Tsinghua University.

The meeting proposed to leverage the guiding role of economic system reform to ensure that landmark reform measures are effectively implemented.

From the opinions on accelerating comprehensive green transformation for economic and social development to the opinions on improving market access systems, relevant reform documents from the central government have been issued successively around the relevant deployments of the 20th Party Congress’s third plenary session. "According to the implementation plan for important reform measures of the 20th Party Congress issued by relevant departments of the central and national agencies, some major reform measures will be accelerated next year," said Dong Yu.

Promoting reform and development through openness is a successful practice in our country's reform and development. The meeting proposed to expand high-level opening up and stabilize foreign trade and foreign investment.

Recently, a series of policies and measures concerning the reform and innovative development of digital trade and the stabilization of foreign trade growth have been successively issued. Dong Yu stated that it is necessary to strengthen enterprise support and services to address the actual difficulties faced by enterprises, further consolidating the foundation of foreign trade and foreign investment by expanding new paths, models, and business formats.

The meeting proposed to increase the implementation efforts of regional strategies and enhance the vitality of regional development. Guo Liyan said that in-depth implementation of major regional strategies should be carried out to steadily promote institutional opening through the construction of free trade pilot zones, thus forming a new pattern of higher-level reform and opening up.

Increase efforts to guarantee and improve people's livelihoods.

The ultimate goal of promoting high-quality development is the happiness and well-being of the people. This meeting pointed out that efforts should be increased to ensure and improve people's livelihoods, enhancing the sense of gain, happiness, and security among the public.

The more complex and severe the economic situation, the more focus should be on people's livelihood concerns to secure an essential safety net. Currently, it is necessary to take more pragmatic measures to fortify the social security network while continuously providing guarantees and improvements to create more effective demand, injecting new momentum into sustained healthy economic and social development," said Long Haibo, a researcher at the State Council Development Research Center.

The meeting made important deployments to continuously consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation, emphasizing the need to 'promote new urbanization and rural revitalization in a coordinated manner, and promote integrated urban and rural development.'

Implementing the meeting's deployments effectively requires all possible efforts to drive agricultural efficiency, increase farmers' income, and invigorate rural areas, and further improve the system and mechanism for urban-rural integration development. Long Haibo said.

Green mountains and clear waters are natural wealth, economic wealth, and social wealth. The meeting emphasized that carbon reduction, pollution reduction, and green growth should be promoted in coordination, accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development. Xu Guangjian stated that currently, the focus should be on actively cultivating the green low-carbon industry, vigorously developing advanced manufacturing, advocating a green and healthy consumer concept, and accelerating the formation of green production and lifestyle.

At critical moments, it is especially important to unite efforts and move forward in a coordinated manner. The meeting emphasized strengthening the Party's leadership over economic work, ensuring that the Party Central Committee's decisions and deployments are implemented.

Experts stated that under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade **** at its core, by implementing the various decisions and deployments in detail, and fully mobilizing the enthusiasm of all parties, we completely have the conditions and capability to achieve next year's economic and social development goals and create a new development situation.

Editor/Rocky