The construction site of a PPP (public-private partnership) project in Nanchang of Jiangxi Province on February 8 (XINHUA)
Improved economic structure and greater benefits for the people usher in a new direction for China's economy
China's GDP growth leveled off at 7 percent in the first half of this year, with an array of optimistic signs, such as better structure, improved growth quality, faster-than-expected job creation and accelerated growth of residents' income, boding well for the ongoing reform.
To stabilize economic growth, the Chinese Government unveiled a number of policies and measures, ranging from launching key infrastructure projects to remolding the investment and financing system, from lowering the reserve requirement ratios and interest rates to promoting tax cuts, from encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship to initiating the Made in China 2025 strategy. "They have begun to take effect, and the national economy is undergoing positive changes," said Sheng Laiyun, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
As a matter of fact, some key indicators have stood firm and even shown an upward trend. Total retail sales of consumer goods grew 10.6 percent in June after adjusting for inflation, 0.4 percentage points faster than that in May; exports scored a positive growth of 2.1 percent in June after experiencing a slump in April and May, according to data from the NBS.
Quality growth
"At present, new growth points are still not powerful enough to completely replace the position of traditional engines, which now are losing their dynamic," Sheng said. He added that the fragile recovery of the global economy added to the downward pressures on the Chinese economy.
"However, the chances are the economy will perform better in the second half of the year," said Sheng, who believes it isn't a question that China will achieve its end-of-year goal of 7 percent.
Substantial progress has been made in the optimization of economic structure. In terms of industrial structure, added value of the service sector made up 49.5 percent of the GDP in the first half of 2015, an increase of 2.1 percentage points from the same period of the previous year.
In terms of domestic demand, consumption contributed 60 percent to the GDP growth, 5.7 percentage points higher than that in the same period of last year.
These changes indicate that China is shifting from a manufacturing- and investment-oriented economy to a service- and consumption-led economy, which is in accordance with the target of its economic restructuring, said Zhu Baoliang, an expert from the State Information Center (SIC).
Improvement was also made in the quality of economic growth. Energy consumption per unit of the GDP fell 5.9 percent year on year, outpacing that in the first quarter by 0.3 percentage points.
The vitality of private economy was further unleashed with more administrative procedures being simplified and power delegated to lower levels of government, said Sheng. In the first half, the industrial value-added output of the non-public economy grew 8.1 percent, 1.8 percentage points faster than the industrial average level, and private fixed assets investment rose by 12.5 percent after adjusting for inflation, accounting for 65.1 percent of total investment.
New industries, new types of businesses and new products have grown by leaps and bounds. Hi-tech industries still maintained a double-digit growth in value-added output, 5 percentage points higher than the industrial average level. In terms of new types of businesses, online retail sales hit 1.65 trillion yuan ($265.65 billion), a year-on-year rise of 39.1 percent. Moreover, some new products, such as robots, new energy cars and railway locomotives, experienced fast growth in output.
