China is an important engine for the steady growth of the global economy

As the world's second largest economy, the world's most populous country, the largest trading country and the main inflow of foreign capital, China is not only the "world's factory", but also the "global market", and the stabilizer and power source of the world's economic development. Recently, some foreign media said that China's economic growth may encounter a "peak", which will be a big drag on the recovery of the world economy. Facts have shown that even though the global economy has fallen into low growth, China's economy has maintained steady development and is still an important engine for global economic growth.

China's economy remains the stabilizer and driving force of global economic growth. In recent years, China's economy has maintained steady growth and is full of resilience and vitality, contributing about 30% to global economic growth. Even in the face of external shocks such as geopolitical conflicts and the fragile and weak global economic recovery, China's economy has been able to stabilize its own development momentum and continue to provide inexhaustible impetus for global economic growth. China has contributed more than 30% to world economic growth for many years and is an important engine for the stable growth of the world economy. Some foreign media predict that China will be the largest contributor to global economic growth in the next five years, and its contribution to global economic growth will exceed that of the G7 countries combined, almost twice that of the United States.

China's economic growth rate is still at the leading level among the world's major economies. The good performance of China's economy is critical to the global recovery. From 2013 to 2023, China's economy grew at an average annual rate of 6.1%, which was 3.1, 4.4 and 2.1 percentage points higher than the average annual growth rates of global, developed, emerging market and developing economies, respectively. Since 2024, China's economy has still performed better than expected, showing a trend of improvement and stabilization. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 5.3% year-on-year in the first quarter and 1.6% quarter-on-quarter in the fourth quarter of last year. China's continued upward trend has boosted the optimism of global investors, and international organizations and institutions have intensively raised their forecasts for China's economic growth in 2024. Considering that China's economic growth in the first quarter was stronger than expected, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that it would raise its previous forecast for China's economy of 4.6%, and market institutions such as Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Deutsche Bank have also raised their forecasts for China's economic growth in 2024. Judging from the forecasts of all parties, China's economic growth rate in 2024 will generally be higher than that of major economies such as the United States, the euro area, and Japan. The IMF expects Asia's economy to grow by 4.5 percent in 2024, thanks to contributions from China and India, outpacing the 4.2 percent growth rate in emerging market and developing economies, and the 1.7 percent growth rate in advanced economies and the 2.7 percent growth rate in the United States, 0.8 percent in the euro area, and 0.9 percent in Japan.

China's economic development brings opportunities rather than risks to other countries. China's economic development is a key factor affecting regional and global prosperity and development. In recent years, the economic recovery of some advanced economies has been slower than expected, which has seriously dragged down the stable growth of the global economy. Some media outlets blame the spillover effects of China's slowdown and fail to reflect on how to boost growth in advanced economies. Under the influence of high inflation and monetary tightening, the economic development of major developed economies has been seriously affected by geopolitical conflicts, monetary policy tightening and high inflation, while export-oriented countries have been greatly dragged down by the slow development of global trade, which is the main reason for the sharp slowdown in global economic growth. According to the "Global Trade Outlook and Statistics" report released by the World Trade Organization (WTO), global merchandise trade volume will decline by 1.2% in 2023 due to high energy prices and inflation severely affecting commodity demand, and the global trade growth forecast for 2024 will be lowered to 2.6% from the previous 3.3%, which is lower than the growth rate of 3.0% in 2022. Some countries have adopted trade protectionism and the bad practices of "decoupling and breaking chains", which have undermined the stability of global industrial and supply chains. Despite protectionism in some countries, China has always adhered to opening up to the outside world, promoting international trade and investment cooperation, promoting people-to-people and tourism exchanges, and creating more opportunities for the development of other countries. The IMF estimates that for every 1 percentage point increase in China's economic growth, the world economy will increase by 0.3 percentage points.

Under external shocks, China's economic return to normalcy has been a tortuous process. Disturbed by external factors, China's economy has shown some cyclical fluctuations, but the potential growth level is still 5%-6%. Practice shows that a country's economic development may fluctuate greatly in the short term when it encounters the impact of accidental events, but it is its economic fundamentals that determine its long-term development. From the perspective of development trends, China's economy has long-term positive fundamentals. This is determined by a variety of factors, such as China's institutional advantages, economic foundation, and development potential. As a super-large economy, China has unique advantages in stimulating the potential of domestic demand. The long-term stable political and social system and the cultural tradition of thrift and hard work have accumulated the original driving force for economic growth. By promoting the intensive development of metropolitan areas and urban agglomerations and building a unified national market, the efficiency of market resource allocation between urban and rural regions can be improved, and new momentum for coordinated economic development will be released.

The new round of reform and opening-up has led to closer ties between China and the world economy. With the in-depth development of economic globalization and China's continuous opening up to the outside world, China's integration into the world is an intrinsic requirement for its own development and an important driving force for the development of the world economy. At present, China is actively taking advantage of favorable factors and seizing the opportunities of the development of the times to further promote the comprehensive deepening of reform and opening up, deepen the reform of state-owned enterprises by continuously optimizing the market-oriented, law-based, international, first-class business environment, promote the development and growth of the private economy, increase efforts to attract foreign investment, continue to improve productivity, and form closer and higher-quality exchanges and interactions with the world economy. In the long term, China will strive to promote Chinese-style modernization and high-quality development, accelerate the optimization of resource allocation, promote fair competition, transform government functions, focus on cultivating new quality productivity and consumption growth points, and enhance the momentum and vitality of the domestic and foreign cycle by promoting coordinated reforms that are broad-based and conducive to market development. China is not only the world's most promising market, but also a major trading partner of more than 140 countries and regions. With the expansion and upgrading of the consumer market and technological innovation, China's economy will maintain stable growth and have a greater positive spillover effect on the world economy. China has always been a staunch supporter, active participant and important contributor to the multilateral trading system, and resolutely opposes any form of trade protectionism and "decoupling and breaking chains", and deeply participates in the global industrial division of labor and cooperation by deepening institutional opening-up of rules, regulations, management and standards. By exploring new trade models such as cross-border e-commerce, market procurement trade, digital trade, bonded maintenance and offshore trade, trade will once again become an engine for economic growth; By making greater efforts to attract and utilize foreign investment, we will welcome more foreign-funded enterprises to invest in China, and continuously improve the quality and level of international circulation.

(The author is a researcher and deputy director of the Macroeconomic Research Department of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges)