70 Years of Leapfrog Development, 17% of Global Economy
The year 2024 marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
The National Bureau of Statistics has recently released a series of reports on the achievements of economic and social development in the 75 years since the establishment of New China.
The series of reports comprehensively showcase the achievements of China's economic and social development over the past 75 years from various aspects such as comprehensive national strength, scientific and technological innovation, consumer market, fixed asset investment, energy supply, ecological environment, and coordinated regional development.
Over the past 75 years, China has gradually established an independent and relatively complete industrial system and a national economic system.
By deeply promoting reform and opening up, it has continuously enhanced the vitality and momentum of economic development, achieving historical leapfrog development in the economy and society.
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At the beginning of the founding of New China, the country's economic foundation was very weak, and the economic scale was very small.
In 1952, China's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was only 30 billion US dollars.
Since the reform and opening up, China's total economic output has continued to expand, its share in the world economy has greatly increased, and its contribution to world economic growth has been significant.
From 1979 to 2023, China's economy has grown at an average annual rate of 8.9%, far higher than the average growth rate of the world economy of 3.0% during the same period.
Its average annual contribution rate to world economic growth is 24.8%, ranking first in the world.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China's total economic output has continuously reached new levels.
In 2014, it broke through 10 trillion US dollars, reaching 10.5 trillion US dollars, and in 2023, it reached 17.8 trillion US dollars, accounting for 16.9% of the world's total, increasing by 5.6 percentage points compared to 2012, and has been firmly in the second place in the world.
The industrial structure has been continuously optimized.
From the perspective of industry, in 2023, China's industrial added value reached 6.8 trillion US dollars, of which the added value of manufacturing industry reached 4.7 trillion US dollars, maintaining the position of the world's largest manufacturing country for 14 consecutive years.
High-tech industries have developed rapidly, and the technical levels of key industries such as new energy vehicles and smartphones have entered the forefront of the world.
From the perspective of the service industry, the output scale has steadily increased, and international competitiveness has been significantly enhanced.
In 2023, China's tertiary industry added value reached 9.7 trillion US dollars.
Looking at the demand structure, as China's economic development level has been comprehensively improved, domestic demand has continued to expand, high-level opening up has been solidly promoted, and the internal structure of the three major demands of consumption, investment, and net exports has continued to improve.
The proportion of the three major demands in GDP has been adjusted from 79.2%, 22.0%, and -1.1% in 1952 to 55.7%, 42.1%, and 2.1% in 2023.
The quality of economic development has been continuously improved, and the coordination and sustainability have been significantly enhanced, accelerating the construction of a new development pattern dominated by domestic circulation and mutually promoted by domestic and international dual circulation.
Investment in the social field has been continuously strengthened, and the people's livelihood service system has been increasingly improved.
From 2013 to 2023, the national health investment grew at an average annual rate of 22.4%, the coverage of basic medical care has been further expanded, and the health medical service system has been gradually improved; national education investment grew at an average annual rate of 15.9%, various kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, and colleges and universities have been accelerated, further promoting the balanced development of urban and rural educational resources; national cultural and artistic industry investment grew at an average annual rate of 12.7%, and an innovative and diverse modern cultural industry system is taking shape.
The series of reports also stated that it is necessary to be clear that the current development of China is still prominent in the problems of imbalance and insufficiency, and the task of optimizing and upgrading the economic structure is still arduous.
It is necessary to accurately grasp the new development stage, organically combine the implementation of the strategy to expand domestic demand with the deepening of supply-side structural reform, accelerate the construction of a new development pattern dominated by domestic circulation and mutually promoted by domestic and international dual circulation, further promote the optimization and upgrading of the economic structure, and provide strong momentum for high-quality development of the economy and society.
Guan Lixin, a researcher at the Institute of Circulation and Consumption of the Research Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, said that to further promote the economic recovery and improvement, it is necessary to overcome some difficulties and challenges, and insufficient effective demand is an important aspect.
The key to expanding domestic demand is to stimulate potential consumption and expand effective investment.
The scientific and technological strength has been growing.
Over the 75 years since the founding of New China, China's scientific and technological undertakings have gone through the process from "marching towards science" to proposing "science and technology are the primary productive forces", from implementing the strategy of revitalizing the country through science and education to building an innovative country, from comprehensively implementing the innovation-driven development strategy to starting a new journey of building a strong country in science and technology.
Talent is the first resource for scientific and technological innovation, and the quality of China's working-age population has been steadily improving, providing a rich reserve of talent for innovative development.
According to the data of the seventh national population census, in 2020, the proportion of the population with a college education or above in China reached 23.6%, an increase of 11.3 percentage points.
With the implementation of the strategy of revitalizing the country through science and education and the strategy of strengthening the country with talents, China's scientific and technological innovation talent team has been continuously growing.
Since 1991, the total number of R&D personnel in China has increased tenfold, breaking through 3 million person-years in 2012, surpassing the United States in 2013, and reaching 7.24 million person-years in 2023, ranking first in the world for 11 consecutive years.
Behind the scientific and technological innovation, policy support is indispensable.
China has continuously optimized and adjusted fiscal and tax policies, strengthened support for scientific and technological innovation, and encouraged enterprises to continuously increase R&D investment.
Since the major reform of the scientific and technological appropriation system in 1985, the national financial expenditure on science and technology has been steadily increasing, and its proportion in the national public financial expenditure has remained stable.
In 2012 and 2019, the financial expenditure on science and technology respectively reached 500 billion and 1 trillion, and in 2022, it reached 1.1 trillion yuan.
Li Xuhong, vice president of Beijing National Accounting Institute, said that China's innovation momentum is accelerating on the one hand, thanks to the continuous improvement of a series of tax preferential policies supporting scientific and technological innovation; on the other hand, the increase in fiscal science and technology investment has provided financial support for the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy.
The demographic dividend is accelerating the transformation into a talent dividend.
"At the beginning of the founding of New China, more than 80% of the population in China were illiterate.
With the gradual establishment of a new cultural education system and the proposal and in-depth implementation of the strategy of giving priority to the development of education, China's overall level of education has leaped to the upper-middle level in the world."
The series of reports said.
In 2023, the number of students in the compulsory education stage and the high school stage were 160 million and 45.42 million, respectively, 6.4 times and 103 times that of 1949, and the popularization level of each stage of basic education has reached or exceeded the average level of high-income countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
In 2023, China's gross enrollment rate in higher education exceeded 60%, and its scale has ranked first in the world; the average number of years of education for the working-age population increased from just over 8 years in 1982 to 11.05 years, and the total amount of talent resources and scientific and technological human resources are both at the forefront of the world.
The series of reports show that higher education has entered the stage of popularization, the pace of training high-level talents has accelerated, and China has entered a key period for the transformation of the demographic dividend into a talent dividend and high-quality development.