Attention should be paid to grasping and properly handling the four major relationships in economic work

Author: Guo Beibei (Researcher, Tianjin Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, Tianjin Research Center for the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics)

The Central Economic Work Conference held in 2023 systematically deployed the economic work in 2024 and clearly put forward the overall requirements of "seeking progress while maintaining stability, promoting stability with progress, and establishing first and then breaking down". At present, the mainland's economy is rebounding and improving, and high-quality development is making solid progress, but it is also facing some difficulties and challenges from changes in the situation at home and abroad, and it needs to respond to the uncertainty of changes in the situation with the certainty of its own development. We should continue to consolidate and enhance the positive trend of economic recovery, and "pay attention to grasping and handling the relationship between speed and quality, macro data and micro feelings, economic development and improvement of people's livelihood, and development and security".

Grasp and handle the relationship between speed and quality

Theoretically, quality and speed are two sides of the same coin, relying on each other and dialectically unified in the whole process of development. Promoting high-quality development is an inherent requirement to adapt to the changes in the main contradictions in mainland society, and it is also the primary task of building a modern socialist country in an all-round way.

Without a reasonable speed, it will be difficult to smoothly achieve the development goals set by the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and it will also be difficult to smoothly achieve the development trend of consolidating and enhancing the economic recovery. In the long run, to promote high-quality development, it is necessary to adapt to the progression of the development stage, resolve the problem of unbalanced and insufficient development, keep the quality and speed in a dynamic balance, and realize the leap from "whether there is any" to "whether it is good or not". In the short term, to promote high-quality development, we must also adapt to the changes in the development situation, overcome the difficulties and challenges of promoting the economic rebound, ensure the main tone of "stability" with "speed", and achieve the general direction of "progress" with "quality". Therefore, we must pay attention to grasping and handling the relationship between speed and quality, take adhering to high-quality development as the last word in the new era, completely, accurately and comprehensively implement the new development concept, coordinate the expansion of domestic demand and deepen the supply-side structural reform, and promote the economy to achieve effective qualitative improvement and reasonable quantitative growth.

Grasp and handle the relationship between macro data and micro feelings

Macro data and micro feelings reflect the economic situation from two dimensions: aggregate and structure, respectively. Generally speaking, micro data is an individual indicator, which varies greatly and rises and falls, while macro data is a comprehensive indicator, which is obtained by hedging and adding up micro data, and has the characteristics of smooth fluctuations.

At present, the mainland is showing a "temperature difference" phenomenon in which macro data is improving and micro data is feeling sluggish to a certain extent. This "temperature difference" phenomenon is related to the comprehensive smoothing of macro data and the limited feelings of micro individuals, but the underlying reason is that the economy is still in the tortuous structural rather than comprehensive recovery process after the epidemic, indicating that there are still deep-seated structural contradictions in the mainland economy that need to be solved urgently. From a financial perspective, there are obstacles in the process of transforming from macro "easy money" to micro "easy credit", and a large amount of M2 liquidity is piled up in the financial system and "idled". From the perspective of consumption, the economic contribution rate of final consumption expenditure in the first three quarters of 2023 is as high as 83.2%, which is in contrast to the weak consumption power of the 600 million low-income groups, whose income is basically used to meet the rigid needs of survival. If this "temperature difference" phenomenon is left unchecked, it will inevitably exacerbate the pessimism of low confidence and insufficient expectations of micro subjects, which will drag down the economic recovery. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to grasping and handling the relationship between macro data and micro feelings, and actively implement the policies of stabilizing expectations, growth, and employment while strengthening economic propaganda and public opinion guidance, so as to promote the formation of stable policy expectations by micro subjects. In particular, it is necessary to strengthen policy coordination, enhance the consistency of macroeconomic policy orientation, strengthen the coordination and cooperation between fiscal, monetary, employment, industrial, regional, scientific and technological policies, and include non-economic policies in the assessment of macroeconomic policy orientation.

We should properly grasp and handle the relationship between developing the economy and improving the people's livelihood

Economic development and improvement of people's livelihood complement each other, which is not only the relationship between means and goals, but also constitutes an economic cycle that affects and conditions each other. In other words, economic development is the fundamental premise for ensuring and improving people's livelihood, and ensuring and improving people's livelihood is the ultimate goal of economic development.

The key to grasping and handling the relationship between economic development and the improvement of people's livelihood lies in persistently safeguarding and improving people's livelihood in the course of development. In the more than 40 years since reform and opening up, the mainland has built a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way amid "rapid growth", satisfying the people's growing material and cultural needs; as we embark on a new journey of building a modern socialist country in an all-round way, we need to continue to meet the people's yearning for a better life through high-quality development, further solve the people's urgent problems, promote the equalization of basic public services, and continuously improve the quality of people's lives. Therefore, we must pay attention to grasping and handling the relationship between economic development and improving people's livelihood, and persist in doing our best and doing what we can in the overall planning of new urbanization and comprehensive rural revitalization, and implement the policy force points proposed by this meeting to give more prominence to employment, weave a dense and solid social security net, accelerate the improvement of the birth support policy system, and develop the silver economy, so as to ensure that the bottom line of people's livelihood is firmly entrenched, and the bottom line of people's livelihood is firmly guaranteed, and people's livelihood is effectively guaranteed and improved.

Grasp and handle well the relationship between development and security

Security is the premise and foundation of development, and development is the guarantee and way of security. As the mainland is building itself into a modern power with high-quality development as the primary task, it is urgent to build a new development pattern with a high-level new security pattern to ensure high quality, so as to prevent and respond to systemic risks that may affect the modernization process.

From a domestic point of view, the mainland's economy is still in the stage of "three-phase superposition", and the "triple pressure" is still relatively large after the epidemic, so it is necessary not only to maintain the overall stability of reform and opening up and promote sustained and healthy economic development, but also to coordinate and resolve risks in key areas such as real estate, local debt, and small and medium-sized financial institutions, so as to maintain the bottom line of no systemic risks, and to focus on safe production and prevention of natural disasters, and strive to solve the security problems that the people have strong reactions to. From an international perspective, the complexity, severity and uncertainty of the external environment are rising, and it is necessary not only to ensure the supply security of important strategic resources such as food and energy, but also to focus on improving the resilience and security of industrial and supply chains, especially to strengthen scientific and technological self-reliance and self-reliance, and strive to solve the problem of "bottlenecks". Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to grasping and handling the relationship between development and security, coordinate high-quality development and high-level security, rely on reform and opening up to enhance the endogenous driving force of development, and accelerate the construction of a high-quality new development pattern.

At present, the favorable conditions for the mainland's development are stronger than the unfavorable factors, and the basic trend of economic rebound and long-term improvement has not changed. Next, we must enhance our confidence and confidence, always maintain a spirit of hard work, bear in mind the "great man of the country", take the initiative to take responsibility, strengthen coordination and cooperation, strive to achieve the goals and tasks of economic and social development, and make new and greater contributions to the construction of a strong country and the great cause of national rejuvenation in an all-round way with Chinese-style modernization with practical actions and results of high-quality development.

Source: Guangming Net-Academic Channel