Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, December 31 (Reporter Ouyang Wei, Li Jie, Yan Jie) In 2023, the world economy will continue to recover from the impact of negative factors such as the new crown epidemic and the Ukraine crisis, but the characteristics of insufficient recovery momentum, unstable growth momentum, and the expansion of the divergence trend of various countries are prominent, and multiple risks such as intensified geopolitical conflicts have cast a shadow on the global growth prospect. At the same time, a new round of global scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is developing in depth, and digital and green transformation is deepening, which is expected to provide new opportunities and create new conditions for world economic growth.
In the face of a complex and severe external environment, China's economy has demonstrated strong resilience and great potential, with an overall recovery, solid progress in high-quality development, and continued to expand high-level opening-up, injecting more positive energy into the world economy.
This is the scene of the launch of the World Economic Outlook Report in Marrakech, Morocco, on October 10, 2023. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Huo Jing.
Divergence is clear and challenging.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently lowered its forecast for global gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2023 to 29%。The OECD believes that the impact of tighter financial conditions, sluggish growth, and declining business and consumer confidence will become increasingly evident in 2023, and economic growth will slow down.
Among the advanced economies, whether the U.S. economy, which is hit by high interest rates, high inflation and high debt, can achieve a "soft landing" has attracted much attention. The International Monetary Organization released a report in October that the U.S. economy will grow by 2 in 20231%, which will slow down to 15%。Barron's reported that as high inflation and high interest rates continue to squeeze consumer spending, U.S. economic activity is likely to weaken further, and a brief recession is expected.
Over the past year, the European economy has struggled. The European Commission recently lowered its economic growth forecast for the EU and the eurozone in 2023 and 2024, believing that the European economy has lost its growth momentum under the influence of high living costs, weak external demand and monetary policy tightening.
Emerging market and developing economies have shown greater resilience as a whole, but there is a marked divergence across economies. In Latin America, for example, Brazil and Mexico are expected to grow faster than expected in 2023 and are expected to grow by more than 3% for the whole year, while Chile may experience near-stagnation and Argentina may experience negative growth.
In 2023, the Asia-Pacific region will unleash strong momentum to lead the global economic recovery. According to the Asia-Pacific Economic Outlook recently released by the International Monetary Organization, the Asia-Pacific region will remain a key driver of global economic development in 2023, and the annual economic growth rate is expected to increase from 3.0% in 20229% to 46%。
Under the influence of many unfavorable factors such as the Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate hikes, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the Ukraine crisis, many countries in the Middle East have suffered from high inflation, capital outflows, and local currency depreciation, and their economic growth has slowed down significantly. Since mid-December, a number of global container shipping giants, including Denmark's Maersk Line Group, have announced the suspension of container ship transportation through the Red Sea. The risk of spillover over from the new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict has intensified, and the global ** chain may be hit by a new impact.
The intensification of geopolitical tensions, coupled with the impact of unfavorable factors such as high interest rates, high inflation, high debt and the rise of protectionism, has caused more restrictions on international cooperation, hindered multilateral cooperation, and increased downward pressure on the world economy, and the outlook is hardly optimistic. According to the International Monetary Organization, global economic growth in 2024 will increase from 30% slowed down to 29%, which is 01 percentage point.
On November 23, 2023, visitors experienced digital human applications at the 2nd Global Digital ** Expo. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xu Yu.
Change and reshaping give birth to new opportunities.
At present, the world economy is facing many risks and challenges, but a new pattern and trend are taking shape.
Experts believe that the increasing complexity of the global chain may gradually form more global connections, and the restructuring of the global industrial chain, the reshaping of the global chain and the reconstruction of the value chain will continue to deepen, which will profoundly affect the global industrial structure and economic pattern.
At the same time, global scientific and technological innovation has entered a period of intensive activity. PricewaterhouseCoopers**, by 2030, artificial intelligence will create 15$7 trillion in economic value.
In the two years since the implementation of the "France 2030" investment plan, half of the 54 billion euro subsidies have been invested in 3,200 innovative projects, according to the French newspaper Les Echos**. According to the report, France's Macron has put forward seven new challenges for French industry, with only one goal - to become a pioneer in future strategic technologies.
Not long ago, the 2nd Global Digital ** Expo held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province brought together more than 800 digital ** enterprises and more than 100 "new digital products" for the first time. Digital technology is gradually becoming a key force in reorganizing factor resources, reshaping the economic structure, and changing the competitive landscape, and driving the global industrial chain to accelerate the integration and optimization of the value chain, greatly reduce the cost, and inject new momentum into the global economic recovery and growth.
The United Arab Emirates' Minister of Economy Abdullah recently said that the UAE will be more dependent on knowledge-based industries and has launched a digital economy strategy, aiming to increase the proportion of digital economy in GDP from 9 in 2022 within 10 years7% to 194%。
Iweala, director general of the World Organization, said that in recent years, global digital **, including digital services, e-commerce**, etc., is growing rapidly, providing an important impetus for promoting the world's ** and economic development.
On the other hand, the growth momentum of green and low-carbon transition related fields is obvious. The International Energy Agency recently released a report predicting that the global installed renewable energy capacity will increase by one-third in 2023. Sadia Zahidi, Executive Director of the World Economic Forum, said that the green transition, especially the energy transition, is one of the areas where the most new jobs will be created in the world in the future.
Workers work on an assembly line at the Lotus Global Smart Factory in the Intelligent Connected and Electric Vehicle Industrial Park in the Economic Development Zone of Wuhan City, Hubei Province, January 11, 2023. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xiao Yijiu.
Seek progress while maintaining stability and forge ahead.
In 2023, China's economy has shown tremendous resilience and its economic strength has reached a new level. There are institutions and experts and scholars**, China's economic growth is 5About 2%, the total economic volume exceeds 126 trillion yuan. In 2023, China will remain the largest engine of global growth, contributing about one-third to global economic growth.
China has made overall plans to expand domestic demand and optimize supply, adhered to the expansion of opening up, and made effective efforts in the combination of macroeconomic regulation and control policies, which have effectively promoted economic recovery. Recently, the International Monetary Organization raised its forecast for China's GDP growth in 2023 to 5% from 5% previously4%, while raising its GDP growth forecast for 2024. The OECD raised China's GDP growth rate to 5 in 20232%。According to the Asian Development Bank's 2023 Asian Development Outlook (December Edition)**, China's economic growth rate will reach 5 in 20232%, up from 49%。
In 2023, China's economy will continue to transform towards high-quality development, with various advanced production factors accumulating, and the formation of new quality productivity accelerating. According to the 2023 ranking of the world's top science and technology clusters released by the World Intellectual Property Organization, China has 24 of the world's top science and technology clusters, becoming the country with the most science and technology clusters.
Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, believes that China is a very dynamic economy, very innovative, and highly competitive in photovoltaic power generation, wind turbines, zero-carbon batteries, electric vehicles and other fields.
Christian Derege, a senior researcher at the European University in Frankfurt, said that European markets and companies are very concerned about China's economic development. China's market size, population education, high-quality infrastructure, and economic growth in Southeast Asia are all critical to Europe's economic recovery.
Brendan Ahern, chief investment officer of the U.S.-based company Jinrui**, who recently visited China, said that plans are being made to launch more China-themed investment products, and that China is an integral part of the global economy and will continue to be a strong contributor to global economic growth.
Looking to the future, China is continuing to optimize its industrial structure, accelerate the transformation of old and new kinetic energy, continue to open up new fields and new tracks for development, shape new development drivers and new advantages, and release more "new" gravitational forces to the world.