China works to vitalize market entities

As China optimized its epidemic response measures and enhanced efforts to help enterprises tide over difficulties, the country has witnessed higher efficiency in the resumption of work and production, as well as a steady rise in the business volume in the logistics sector.

In Beijing, many enterprises have recovered their transport and production capacity; in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong province, tech firms are working to grasp the opportunities of digital transformation, and unicorn firms are striving for better development; in southwest China's Chongqing municipality, over 95 percent of the enterprises above designated size in the equipment industry have resumed production.

They reflect the recovering vitality of market entities, as well as the strong resilience, potential and vitality of the Chinese economy.

Cargos are unloaded from an oil tanker at a crude oil terminal of the Yantai Port in east China's Shandong province, Dec. 18, 2022. The cargo handling capacity of the Yantai Port for the first time exceeded 400 million tons in 2022, up 13.7 percent year on year. Its container throughput hit over four million twenty-foot equivalent units in 2022, up 13.9 percent from a year ago. [People's Daily Online/Zhang Chao]

The recent annual Central Economic Work Conference stressed lifting market confidence, implementing policies centering on market entities, improving the way of policy implementation, and enhancing the timeliness and precision of policies.

To promote economic recovery, and achieve effective improvement in quality and reasonable growth in quantity, it is necessary to boost market confidence, fully release the society's potential for innovation, unswervingly deepen reforms and further stimulate market vitality and social creativity.

In the past decade, China has made historic achievements and witnessed historic changes in its economic and social development, and has shifted its focus to high-quality development.

During this period, the number of registered entities in the Chinese market increased from 55 million to 163 million, which has laid a solid micro-foundation for the stable, healthy and sustainable development of the Chinese economy.

In order to ensure the operations of market entities and promote economic development, China has unveiled a package of policies to help enterprises tide over difficulties, including value-added tax credit refund and supportive measures for small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Photo taken on Oct. 27, 2022 shows a port in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong province. [People's Daily Online/Wang Meiyan]

Besides, the country also promoted reforms, such as the reform separating operation permits from business licenses, and systematically establishing a top-level design policy framework for fair competition, which created a sound market environment for the healthy development of market entities.

The online retail sales of physical goods grew by 6.4 percent year on year in the first 11 months of 2022, which demonstrated the resilience of the Chinese consumption market.

In the same period, the total added value of industrial enterprises above the designated size registered 3.8-percent year-on-year growth. Industrial production maintained stability in general and new growth drivers kept expanding.

China boasts the world's biggest middle-income group and stands as a consumption market that sees the brightest prospects in the world, which lays a solid foundation for the prosperous development of market entities.

Workers operate devices on a production line of an enterprise in a high-tech development zone in Bijie, southwest China's Guizhou province, Oct. 11, 2022. [People's Daily Online/Luo Dafu]

The country will enhance its macro-regulation, build a market-oriented and world-class business environment governed by a sound legal framework, so as to foster synergy for high-quality development through expanded and upgraded domestic demand and high-quality supply.

China's economic development still enjoys broad prospects in the long run, and is expected to improve in general in 2023. The massive market entities in the country will definitely embrace better development and realize stronger and more sustainable development.

Respecting market laws, implementing policies centering on market entities, boosting confidence for development and practically assisting enterprises to tackle challenges, China has the confidence and capability to constantly enhance the vitality of its economic and social development, help market entities gain a bigger role in the course of Chinese modernization, and achieve long-term and stable economic development.