Expert highlights innovative drivers to bolster high-quality development

China's emphasis on nurturing new quality productive forces is set to inject fresh impetus into the country's high-quality development and contribute greatly to global economic recovery, while offering enormous business opportunities for investors both at home and abroad, according to an economist.

China should ratchet up efforts to bolster sci-tech innovation, especially innovation in cutting-edge and disruptive technologies, so as to foster new growth drivers and gain a competitive edge amid a new round of global technological revolution and industrial transformation, said Huang Hanquan, head of the Academy of Macroeconomic Research, which is affiliated to the National Development and Reform Commission.

Emphasizing the key role of innovation, the phrase "new quality productive forces" refers to advanced productivity liberated from traditional economic growth models. Such productivity is characterized by high-tech, high efficiency and high quality, and is in line with the nation's new development philosophy.

According to him, the country has favorable conditions for fostering new quality productive forces given its innovation-driven development strategy, increased investments in research and development, high-caliber talent, as well as people's rising demand for high-quality products and services.

Dismissing speculation that the Chinese economy is showing signs of peaking, Huang said the country's economic growth has gained momentum during the first two months of the year, with improvements in key indicators, including consumption, fixed-asset investments, and imports and exports.

He said the Chinese economy is expected to expand at a steady pace, with the potential growth rate reaching 5 percent to 6 percent in the coming years mainly fueled by technological innovation. He said that the development of new quality productive forces will play a crucial role in propelling China's economic growth.

Noting that China serves as an important engine of global economic development, Huang said the country's intensified efforts to develop new quality productive forces will bring about immense market demand for new technologies, products and services, as well as new investment opportunities for domestic and foreign investors.

He said the new quality productive forces are mainly driven by revolutionary technological breakthroughs, innovative allocation of production factors, and deep industrial transformation and upgrading.

More efforts should be made to give full play to the role of enterprises, especially small and medium-sized ones, in bolstering sci-tech innovation, propelling the integration of innovation achievements with industrial applications, as well as fostering strategic emerging industries and future-oriented industries, and upgrading traditional industries, Huang said.

Huang stressed the need to deepen reforms in fields like technology, education and talent development, speed up the establishment of a national unified domestic market, and strengthen the training of high-tech talent, in a bid to accelerate the development of new quality productive forces.

It is of vital importance to expand high-level opening-up, strengthen international cooperation and exchanges in sci-tech, and support foreign enterprises in carrying out technological research and innovative practices in collaboration with Chinese research institutes and companies, to further attract foreign businesses to China, he added.

Denis Depoux, global managing director of market consultancy Roland Berger, said, "I believe what's very important for China this year is to transform its economy, to further transform its economy toward higher productivity, more added value and more sophisticated products not only for the domestic market, but also for exports."

He said foreign companies can play a bigger role in supporting China's transformation in fields such as decarbonization, automation, and digitalization of industrial and supply chains, adding the country's emphasis on developing new quality productive forces is all about the transformation of its economy.

He said these new quality productive forces will attract more investment by foreign companies to support Chinese companies' transformation, and to bring more technologies to the world's second-largest economy.

Technology and innovation are key to bringing disruptive changes to the Chinese economy, and China boasts strong competitive advantages in some new areas, such as electric vehicles, energy storage, photovoltaics and wind power, Depoux said.