Author: Zhong Caiwen.
We will encounter many difficulties on the road ahead, and the more difficult times we are, the more we must clearly recognize the tremendous advantages of China's economic development, strengthen our confidence, and unleash the tremendous potential contained in it. Judging from the current reality of China's economic development, there are at least the following four aspects of great advantages and potentials:
First, the socialist system under the leadership of the Communist Party of China is not only the greatest feature of China's economic system, but also the greatest advantage of China's economic development. The party's centralized and unified leadership and long-term ruling are far-sighted, able not to be disturbed by immediate interests, good at judging the hour and sizing up the situation, and turning crises into opportunities. At the same time, it can also set long-term goals for economic development and the interests of all the people, and continue to strive for them from generation to generation. The socialist system can effectively correct the shortcomings of the market mechanism, such as undermining social fairness and aggravating polarization, promote common prosperity, unite all the people, and fully stimulate their enthusiasm, initiative and creativity. The socialist system under the leadership of the party can also give full play to the advantages of the new first-class system, realize self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology, effectively prevent and deal with major risks, and resist various pressures and challenges brought by the external environment. What is particularly precious is that our party has always had the glorious tradition of not compromising in the face of difficulties, not bowing down, and having the courage to blaze a new trail, and the people of the whole country have full trust in the first comrade as the core, and have the confidence and determination to follow the party.
Second, China has the advantage of being recyclable in its internal economy, and can rely on expanding domestic demand, especially household consumption, to continue to drive economic growth. On the one hand, China's industrial system is complete and has a strong supply capacity. The proportion of China's manufacturing industry in the global manufacturing industry has risen from less than 3% in 1990 to nearly 30% in 2022, and the overall scale of the manufacturing industry will rank first in the world for 14 consecutive years in 2023. Among the more than 500 kinds of major industrial products, the output of more than 220 kinds ranks first in the world, the output of steel, coal and cement accounts for nearly 50% or even 60% of the world, and the output of computers and mobile phones also accounts for more than half of the world. In the list of the world's top 500 companies in 2023, 135 companies from Chinese mainland are on the list, which is the same number as the United States. On the other hand, with a strong supply capacity, China has a super-large domestic demand market. The market is the most scarce resource in a market economy. China is the world's second largest consumer market and the second largest import market, the world's largest automobile market, consumer electronics market and online retail market, with annual sales of about 27 million new cars, twice that of the United States, which ranks second. According to the latest statistics, the total number of middle-income groups in China has exceeded 500 million, and the per capita national income has reached 1At $250,000, it is in the stage of mass high consumption that Rostow said, and the Chinese market has great development potential and global appeal.
This advantage has provided an important condition for China to continue to drive economic growth by expanding domestic demand, especially expanding household consumption. In 2022, the proportion of China's household consumption in GDP will be less than 40%, and if it reaches the average level of middle-income countries, that is, the proportion of GDP will increase by 10 percentage points, it will be 126 trillion yuan, the endogenous driving force of China's economic growth will be significantly enhanced.
Third, China has the advantage of agglomeration of factor resources, which can create population and industrial agglomeration through the adjustment of the layout of productive forces, and give full play to the effect of innovation agglomeration. On the one hand, China has the largest number of large cities and urban populations in the world, and has the advantage of agglomeration of factor resources; On the other hand, China's urbanization development is still relatively lagging behind, and it has the potential to further improve the agglomeration of factor resources. The development level of urbanization in China not only lags behind countries with similar levels of economic development, but also lags behind the same development stage of developed countries. For example, the urbanization rate of China's permanent population in 2023 is only 662%, compared to 77 in Japan in 1990The urbanization rate of 4% is about 11 percentage points lower, and the urbanization rate of China's registered population is only 477%, which is about 18 percentage points lower than the urbanization rate of permanent residents. China's urbanization has great potential for development in terms of speed and quality. Urban population growth will not only drive consumption growth, but also stimulate investment demand in urban infrastructure and public service facilities. It is estimated that every 1 percentage point increase in China's urbanization rate will directly lead to an increase of 3 percent in per capita capital stock5%, about 66 trillion yuan of new investment demand. It is also estimated that if urban and rural migrants can have access to the same public services, China's consumer demand can increase by nearly 30%.
An important direction of China's urbanization development is metropolitan areas and urban agglomerations. The agglomeration of large-scale population and industry in metropolitan areas and urban agglomerations will become an important factor in improving regional labor productivity and a new source of power for China's economic development. Some experts found from the changes in the level of population agglomeration in more than 300 cities in China in the past 20 years that there is an obvious positive correlation between population density, employment density and output efficiency. All other things being equal, a 1 percentage point increase in population density corresponds to a GDP growth of 082%。China's Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Chengdu-Chongqing region, etc., are not only densely populated areas, but also important innovation clusters, which will surely become an important power source for economic development.
Fourth, China has the advantage of human capital stock, which can be combined with China's national conditions to produce huge benefits in the new round of scientific and technological revolution. The huge investment in education by our country and families will continue to translate into a demographic quality dividend. According to estimates, the average number of years of education for people aged 15 and above has increased from 9 in 201008 in 2020 to 9In 91, the average number of years of education for the new labor force in 2022 has increased to 14 years. There are more than 5 million science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) graduates in China every year, more than 10 times that of the United States. The demographic quality dividend can compensate for the decline in population to a certain extent. The results show that the contribution of labor input to economic growth increases after considering the quality and efficiency of population.
China has a world-leading talent team, a broad market space, diversified application scenarios, and a large-scale R&D investment and strong support, and China's scientific and technological progress has broad prospects. In 2020, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) for the first time proposed to "take scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement as the strategic support for national development", put scientific and technological innovation at the core of the overall national development, and continuously strengthen innovation-driven top-level design, forward-looking planning and system deployment. China's R&D expenditure in 2023 is 333 trillion yuan, ranking second in the world for many years, and the R&D intensity (the ratio of R&D investment to GDP) reached 264%, exceeding the average of OECD countries, and an innovation mechanism with enterprises as the main body of innovation is being formed. With the huge advantages and potentials of the above four aspects, coupled with the spirit of Chinese people to bear hardships and stand hard work, the innovative spirit of Chinese entrepreneurs, and the strong competitiveness of Chinese products, I believe that the prospects of China's economy will be brighter. (Zhong Caiwen).
*:Economy**.