Long-term growth prospects called promising

The long-term positive fundamentals of the Chinese economy have remained unchanged, with the economy showing strong resilience, immense potential and robust vitality, and China's development still faces favorable conditions, the spokesman for the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China said on Saturday.

Sun Yeli, the spokesman, told a news conference one day ahead of the opening of the congress that China will continue to deepen supply-side structural reform, expand effective demand and take concrete measures to ensure food and energy security and the stability of industry and supply chains.

The nation will scale up measures to stabilize the job market, ensure public well-being and maintain major economic indicators within a proper range, he said.

Sun dismissed concerns that the nation will scale back its opening-up in its drive to foster a new development paradigm in which the domestic market is taken as the mainstay and the domestic and international markets reinforce each other.

He said that a higher level of opening-up is an essential part of efforts to foster the new development paradigm, and making the domestic market the mainstay doesn't mean seeking development behind closed doors.

The official said Beijing's resolve and will for opening-up will remain unwavering, despite all changes in the international landscape. "We will remain committed to carrying out opening-up on a large scale, in more wide-ranging areas and at a deeper level."

Sun added that the nation's recent efforts to prevent the irregular expansion of capital do not mean that the nation is no longer seeking to promote the healthy development of the nonpublic sector.

The private sector remained a key economic pillar for adhering to and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics, and the Party's policy to encourage, support and guide the development of the nonpublic sector has not changed and will not change, he said.

"China is a country that practices the rule of law. State-owned and private capital, domestic and foreign investment are all protected by law," he said.

The spokesman said China's dynamic zero-COVID policy remains the most cost-effective policy that works best for the country, and the nation will continue to make its virus response measures more scientific and precise.

As for foreign policy, Sun underscored that the most important development in international relations in the coming five decades would be for China and the United States to find a way to get along.

"We believe that the Chinese and American people have the wisdom, the opportunity and the capability to find a way for peaceful coexistence," Sun said, adding that a sound and stable China-US relationship would serve the common interests of the two peoples.

"China's pursuit of development is to make life better for its people, instead of to challenge anyone else. But China will not allow others to bully it, and the historic process of China's national rejuvenation cannot be held back by anyone or any force."

xuwei@chinadaily.com.cn