Focus on stable, healthy economic development: China Daily editorial

The three-day Central Economic Work Conference which concluded on Friday should serve to convey the decision-makers' confidence in China's economic prospects for the next year to the world.

The tone-setting meeting for next year's economic work has made it clear that China will take measures to ensure stable and healthy development, and focus on maintaining growth within a given range.

As the statement issued by the conference said, economic stability will be the focus of economic work for the government next year, and all related policies to be devised must serve that purpose.

To achieve that, the government must implement prudent and effective macro-economic policy, and continue with its proactive fiscal policies and prudent monetary policies, which shall be better targeted and more sustainable, so as to ensure small and medium-sized enterprises, and the green and strategic technology sectors have access to adequate liquidity.

Which means that despite the headwinds and mounting downward pressure, along with the geopolitical uncertainties, the economy may face, China will continue to adhere to the principle of coping with emerging challenges by focusing on managing its own business.

This includes creating enough jobs, sustaining healthy growth, and making breakthroughs in key technologies. That is to say, macro-economic policy will focus more on the practical needs of the market entities, and accord more support to the real economy.

That the authorities will follow prudent policies and yet make pragmatic decisions to boost growth was evident in the central bank cutting the reserve requirement ratio by 0.5 percentage points on Monday soon after Premier Li Keqiang said it may adjust it. This injected about 1.2 trillion yuan ($188.16 billion) into the market mainly to help the financial institutions repay the central bank's dues and replenish their funds.

To strengthen the economy's endogenous attributes, China will take policy measures to expand domestic demand and increase investment in research and development, especially in key sectors.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of China's entry into the World Trade Organization and, as these policies show, it remains as committed to opening up its economy wider to the outside world as it was two decades ago. Yet it is also committed to building a new development paradigm to seek progress while maintaining stability.

With the central bank de-pegging its monetary policy, which remains moderately loose, with the US Federal Reserve's tightening cycle, the stabilization of coal prices, deflation of real estate bubbles and effective COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control measures all helped the authorities to expedite their economic planning to promote higher-quality development.

For the Chinese economy, 2022 will be a pressure test. Hopefully, the decisions made at the Central Economic Work Conference will help it to pass that test, and function more smoothly by adopting the "dual circulation" development paradigm.