From July 15 to 18, the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, which attracted worldwide attention, was held in Beijing. The plenary session deliberated and adopted the Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Promoting Chinese-style Modernization. The plenary session proposed to deepen the supply-side structural reform, improve the incentive and restraint mechanism for promoting high-quality development, and shape new momentum and new advantages for development. As the mainland economy shifts from a high-speed growth stage to a high-quality development stage, the basic conditions and factor endowments on which the mainland's economic development depends have undergone fundamental changes, and efforts are made to improve total factor productivity, and innovation as the fundamental driving force of economic development not only reflects the party's deepening and profound grasp of the laws of economic development, but also meets the practical needs of economic and social development, which is conducive to promoting the qualitative change, efficiency change, and power change of China's economic development, and is conducive to the transformation and continuation of growth momentum in the new development stage. The promotion of Chinese-style modernization has pointed out the direction.
"New" has become the norm
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping has attached great importance to innovation, put innovation in a prominent position as the first driving force for development, and found the "password" of strong resilience, great potential and sufficient momentum for high-quality economic development and transformation. China's economic growth rate ranks among the highest in the world, and its economic scale ranks second in the world, and the "new" elements of China's economic structure are accumulating, the "new" momentum is accumulating, and the "new" forces are forming.
From the perspective of supply, there are many bright spots in the transformation of new industrialization. The new industrialization combines the new advantages of the new round of scientific and technological revolution and the industrial revolution, continues the economies of scale and extends the economies of scope for traditional industries, builds a scene platform for new industries, and creates infinite vitality. Taking the first half of 2024 as an example, 39 of the 41 major industrial industries achieved year-on-year growth, the added value of high-tech manufacturing above designated size increased by 8.7% year-on-year, and the investment in high-tech industries increased by 10.6% year-on-year, indicating that new industries and new infrastructure such as 5G and artificial intelligence have accelerated their layout and construction, and have been promoted in various fields, and the pace of digital industrialization and industrial digital transformation has been steady. As a representative of new quality productivity, the promotion of new technologies such as 5G and artificial intelligence has promoted the upgrading and transformation of traditional industries, and also cultivated new industries and future industries.
From the perspective of demand, new consumption has gradually become the mainstream of consumption. With the steady increase in residents' income, mainland residents' consumption has shifted from focusing on quantitative satisfaction to pursuing qualitative improvement, and from imitation-type consumption to personalized, customized and diversified consumption. Taking the first half of 2024 as an example, the per capita disposable income of residents nationwide was 20,733 yuan, a nominal increase of 5.4% year-on-year, and a real growth rate of 5.3% after deducting price factors, which was higher than the GDP growth rate. The continuous increase in income has driven the growth of consumption scale and structural upgrading, traditional consumption such as commodity retail and catering is still hot, the spring tide of service consumption is surging, "holiday travel" is crowded, and some representative "trendy products" of digital, green and health categories are growing rapidly, and the consumption of new goods and services has gradually become the main driving force for consumption growth.
"New" Peiyuan solid foundation
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that "the decisive factor that dominates the destiny of the country's development is the development of social productive forces and the improvement of labor productivity. The high-quality development of China's economy includes two aspects: the reasonable growth of "development" and the effective improvement of "high quality".
Increase the proportion of innovation in the growth of volume. At present, the people's demand for a better life is growing, personalized, diversified, customized demand iteration of new, unbalanced and insufficient economic development is still prominent, to solve the continuous growth of effective demand, we must adhere to innovation as the first driving force of economic development, with the diversification, originality, and subversive advantages of innovation to break the shackles of diminishing returns on the scale of traditional population, capital, etc., from the reduction of the absolute scale of traditional factors to seek qualitative improvement to bring about relative growth, and fully tap the potential of traditional factor functions. Expand the boundaries of traditional factors and explore more new elements of innovation, improve total factor productivity, and increase the proportion of innovation factors in China's transformation from an economic power to an economic power.
In the qualitative improvement, we will plant innovative advantages. It is necessary to shift from extensive development to intensive development to realize the functional reorganization and rebirth of the production function. Reorganization refers to the improvement of factor allocation efficiency and the optimization of factor combination, while rebirth refers to the formation of new qualitative productivity. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that it is necessary to integrate scientific and technological innovation resources, lead the development of strategic emerging industries and future industries, and accelerate the formation of new quality productivity. The new quality productivity is a contemporary advanced productive force born by technological revolutionary breakthroughs, innovative allocation of production factors, and deep industrial transformation and upgrading, which is based on the qualitative change of laborers, labor materials, labor objects and their optimal combination, and the subversive and original technological revolution formed by the new quality productivity will inevitably bring about an increase in the return of traditional factors and the expansion of the scope of the new quality factor economy, continuously increase the proportion of innovation in China's economic supply and output system, and cultivate the new advantages of China's construction of an innovative country.
"New" first power
In the face of major changes unseen in a century and a complex and volatile international environment, opportunities and challenges coexist to promote the high-quality development of China's economy, but on the whole, the opportunities outweigh the challenges, and the advantages of supporting the high-quality development of the mainland economy have not fundamentally changed. As long as we adhere to the concept of relying on the people and for the people, starting from the reality of development to meet the people's growing needs for a better life, activate the innovation code from the three levels of population transformation, industrial transformation and governance transformation, and fully stimulate the creativity of the people, we can continuously improve the incentive and restraint mechanism for promoting high-quality development and build new momentum and new advantages for high-quality economic development.
Unlock the power of innovation from the demographic transition. Talent is the first resource. Although China has entered an aging society, the rational development of the second demographic dividend and the understanding of the human capital contained in China's more than 1.4 billion people from a broader and long-term focus can activate the main code of China's innovation. Increase investment in education, especially in basic education and vocational education, strengthen the foundation to make up for shortcomings, and improve the overall human capital level of the population. Seize the opportunity of the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation to penetrate widely in various economic and social scenarios, accelerate the adjustment of industrial structure and promote the cross-regional, cross-industry and cross-attribute flow of labor, tap the potential talent dividend, knowledge dividend and engineer dividend within the abundant labor force, accelerate the development of the second demographic dividend, and continue to improve the efficiency of the allocation of population flow factors and tap the talent dividend.
Consolidate and expand the main body of innovation from industrial transformation. The main force of enterprises to promote innovation plays a fundamental and fundamental role in high-quality economic development, and is the key to building an innovative country and forming new quality productivity. We will improve the system and mechanism for the development of new quality productive forces in accordance with local conditions, give full play to the comparative advantages of enterprises and expand their potential advantages, and realize the differentiation and specialization of the layout of new quality productive forces. Improve the system for promoting the deep integration of the real economy and the digital economy, integrate rich scene advantages, technological advantages, and iterative advantages, promote the transformation of enterprises from heavy manufacturing to manufacturing and service, and constantly improve the development of the service industry system and mechanism. Improve the system and mechanism of modern infrastructure construction, accelerate the construction of new infrastructure such as the new generation of Internet and artificial intelligence, drive the transformation of production infrastructure in various industries of the national economy to digitalization, networking and intelligence, promote technological innovation, industrial innovation and business model innovation, and promote the development of new industries, new formats and new models.
From the transformation of governance, we will continue to form policy synergies to promote innovation. An efficient governance system is the embodiment of the country's ability to give full play to the advantages of concentrating on major affairs, and it is also an important guarantee to maximize the collective innovation of the state and market players and enhance China's knowledge dominance. Establish a first-class business environment, build a bridge between the government and enterprises with a new type of government-business relationship, clarify the boundary between the government and the market, and build a superior market environment of fairness, rule of law and competition for entrepreneurs through the "helping hand". It is necessary to give full play to the main role of the invisible hand of the market in promoting innovation, and in addition, it is necessary to focus on solving the problem of market failure in innovation through the visible hand of the government, promote the synergy and network advantages of innovation, and continuously enhance the autonomy, security and openness of innovation.
The author is deputy director and associate researcher of the Economic Growth Research Office of the Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Source: Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences