Xinhua News Agency, Tianjin, January 20th Topic: China’s three-year fight against the epidemic has won strategic space for global economic recovery
Xinhua News Agency reporter Bai Jiali
Entering the new year, China has adjusted the new crown virus infection from “Class B and A regulation” to “Class B and B regulation”. Adjustment is not only a necessary step for scientific prevention and control, but also a strategic move to efficiently coordinate epidemic prevention and control with economic and social development, and safeguard the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people.
The facts of the past three years of fighting against the epidemic have proved that China has not only effectively responded to the impact of multiple waves of the global epidemic, but also avoided the spread of relatively strong pathogenic original strains and delta mutant strains, and greatly reduced severe illness and death. Cases have also won strategic space for the recovery of the global economy.
China’s economy is stable, adding “certainty” to the world economy
Looking back at 2022, facing the intertwined and superimposed changes of the century and the epidemic of the century, various security challenges emerge one after another, the recovery of the world economy is struggling, and global development has encountered serious setbacks. Stability and development have become the aspirations of the people.
As the world‘s second largest economy, China has always been an important engine of world economic growth and has become the main driving force for world economic growth.
According to the World Bank’s World Development Indicators database, from 2013 to the two years after the outbreak, China’s average contribution rate to world economic growth reached 38.6%, exceeding the sum of the contribution rates of the G7 countries.
Especially in the past three years, in the face of repeated epidemics, China’s economy has shown strong resilience: in 2020, China will become the world‘s first major economy to achieve positive economic growth; in 2021, China’s total economic volume will account for 18.5% of the world economy, ranking firmly The second place in the world; in 2022, China’s economy will draw a “V”-shaped recovery curve, and the GDP will exceed 120 trillion yuan.
The Chinese government has gone all out and made efficient overall plans. The Chinese economy has moved forward under pressure and made steady progress, adding positive factors and driving forces to the world economy. The movements of foreign capital show their confidence in the Chinese economy.
On November 9, 2022, in the Airbus plant in the airport area of Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone, Airbus’s only final assembly line in Asia officially put into production the A321 model. According to Xu Gang, Airbus Global Executive Vice President and Airbus China CEO, Airbus’ development resilience comes from the attractiveness of the Chinese market.
In 2020, China’s actual use of foreign capital for the whole year is nearly 1 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.2%. 1,232.68 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.3%.
Liu Gang, director of the Economic Research Institute of Nankai University, believes that in the context of weak global cross-border investment, China’s actual use of foreign capital will maintain a steady growth in 2022, showing the resilience and potential of the Chinese economy, and it also reflects the role of the “stabilizer” of the Chinese economy.
The global economic growth slows down, and the “China plan” provides more “possibilities”
After three years of hardship and turmoil, the World Economic Outlook Report released by the International Monetary Fund predicts that the global economic growth rate will slow to 2.7% in 2023.
Peace, development, cooperation, and win-win results, let unity replace division, cooperation instead of confrontation, tolerance instead of exclusion, and promote global development that is more inclusive, more inclusive, and more resilient——at the 2022 G20 Bali Summit , China’s proposition reassures the world.
The port is an important channel for opening up to the outside world and an important “barometer” of economic operation. The Chinese New Year is approaching. Overlooking the main channel of Tianjin Port on the Bohai Bay, liner cargo ships shuttle back and forth. The trucks of the Pacific International Container Terminal are closely cooperating with the remote control quay crane, and the containers are safely and quickly transported to the ship.
In the past three years, such scenes have become normalized in Tianjin Port. In July 2022 alone, Tianjin Port will open three “Belt and Road” and RCEP new routes. “In 2022, the average single-bridge operating efficiency of the terminal will increase by more than 40%. We are very confident in the production in 2023.” said Feng Miao, manager of the operation department of Tianjin Port Second Container Terminal Co., Ltd.
The “Comprehensive Evaluation Report on World-Class Ports (2022)” shows that in 2021, China’s port throughput will reach 15.545 billion tons, and container throughput will reach 283 million TEUs. The number of automated terminals that have been built or are under construction ranks first in the world.
Against the background of the slump in the global trade situation, China’s foreign trade performance is still outstanding. In 2020, China will become the only major economy in the world to achieve positive growth in trade in goods; in 2021, China’s imports will contribute 13.4% to global import growth, effectively promoting the recovery of the world economy; in 2022, the total value of China’s imports and exports of goods will 42.07 trillion yuan, an increase of 7.7% over 2021, and China’s total import and export value exceeded 40 trillion yuan for the first time.
China’s economic spillover effects are highly anticipated. On November 10, 2022, the Fifth China International Import Expo ended successfully in Shanghai. Faced with the reality of a sluggish world economy, the CIIE under the epidemic has reached a new high in terms of one-year intentional turnover, with a cumulative intended turnover of US$73.52 billion, an increase of 3.9% over the previous session.
The “World Opening Report 2022″ commented: “The CIIE has been held as scheduled for five consecutive years, making China’s big market a big opportunity for the world, releasing a positive signal of China’s comprehensive opening up and strengthening international cooperation, and showing the sharing of market opportunities with the world, China is responsible for promoting the recovery of the world economy.”
China’s recovery paves way, ‘source of confidence’ for world economy
Recently, well-known financial institutions such as Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and UBS have raised their forecasts for China’s economic growth in 2023, believing that optimizing and adjusting epidemic prevention policies will help China’s economy recover faster. Hong Kong’s “South China Morning Post” published an article saying that China’s recovery and the optimization of epidemic prevention and control measures will make 2023 a year worth remembering for investors.
After the New Year’s Day holiday, the investment promotion group organized by the Tianjin Municipal Bureau of Commerce to Singapore and Hong Kong, China officially set off. This is the first overseas business and investment promotion group organized by Tianjin since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic. Entrepreneurs in many cities in China have also taken action to seek development opportunities abroad.
The news of recovery one after another sends a positive signal of the upward trend of China’s economy. According to the calculation of the data center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, during the New Year’s Day holiday in 2023, domestic tourism revenue will be 26.517 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.0%. 41.141 million passengers, an increase of 47.2% over the same period in 2022.
Recently, a series of key projects held in Tianjin have been signed intensively, giving the start of the new year a sprint atmosphere. “We have recently signed on-site contracts with 14 companies, involving new energy, new technology, business services, deep processing of agricultural products, health care and other fields, with a planned total investment of 4 billion yuan.” said Chen Liangwen, deputy head of Ninghe District, Tianjin.
China is good at grasping opportunities in crises, and will use the “momentum” accumulated in the past three years of fighting the epidemic to move forward better. The digital economy is one of the “powers”.
In 2021, the digital economy has become one of the main engines driving China’s economic growth. The scale of China’s digital economy has been ranked second in the world for many years in a row. The “China Internet Development Report 2022” pointed out that as of June last year, China had built and opened a total of 1.854 million 5G base stations, building the world‘s largest 5G network.
Economic experts generally believe that China’s economy will achieve an overall improvement in 2023, and it is a high probability event that the growth rate will reach a normal level.