High-quality development, which includes innovative, coordinated, green, open, and development for all, was one of the buzzwords during China’s recently finished Two Sessions, which outlined the development priorities of the second-largest economy in the world for 2023.
President Xi Jinping emphasized the value of pursuing high-quality development, calling it the “first and foremost” task in China’s modernization effort, while participating in a discussion with his fellow National People’s Congress (NPC) deputies from the delegation of Jiangsu Province during the session. The road the nation must take to support high-quality growth, according to the president, involves stepping up efforts to increase self-reliance and technological power.
In his speech to the closing meeting of the first session of the 14th NPC on Monday, Xi reaffirmed that China should work to increase its independence and technological strength, advance industrial transformation and upgrading, advance coordinated urban-rural and regional development, and promote green and low-carbon economic and social development.
Premier Li Qiang of China also vowed to concentrate efforts on supporting high-quality growth, stating that his country will increase its capacity for innovation and science and technology, speed up the construction of a modern industrial system, and progress the transition to green development.Along with progress in other areas, China has made strides in recent years to pursue innovative, coordinated, green, open, and shared growth. These steps include increasing research and development spending, increasing clean energy production, and nurturing growth poles with regional development strategies.
China must rely on innovation to ensure ongoing and healthy economic development, according to Xi, who first brought up the topic in 2014 during an inspection tour to Jiangsu Province.
According to the 2023 government work report, China fully executed the innovation-driven growth strategy over the previous five years and modernized and enhanced the industrial structure.China promoted development of the real economy through innovation and continued to foster new drivers of growth, said the report. The leading role of technological innovation was reinforced, it said, adding that China launched a number of major sci-tech innovation projects and stepped up efforts to secure breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields.
In the pursuit of high-quality development, China is also doubling down on technological innovation as a primary driver of growth. In 2022, China spent a record 3.09 trillion yuan ($449 billion) on research and development, a 10.4-percent year-on-year increase that could be credited with the nation’s accelerated efforts to enhance its innovation capability for more breakthroughs.
China saw its ranking in the Global Innovation Index jump from 34th in 2012 to 11th last year, with the economy expanding at an average annual rate of 6.6 percent between 2013 and 2021, contributing over 30 percent to world economic growth.
