'GDP Target Sets Stage For High-quality Development'

Beijing’s pursuit of high-quality economic development isn’t merely a push towards technological and market innovation, analysts told RTHK, but marks a more holistic approach of improving people’s lives and the environment, as well as tackling social issues and inequality.

One expert warned that balancing all this could be a difficult juggling act.

President Xi Jinping had repeatedly stressed during the just-concluded "Two Sessions" meeting of China’s top political bodies that scientific and technological innovation will be a core driver of high-quality development, but he also noted that the ultimate goal is the happiness and well-being of the people.

"People do not only care about income, but they also care about the quality of the air they breathe in... and they also care about how the community is being managed so that they feel more satisfied," noted Liu Baocheng, founder of the Center for International Business Ethics at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.

Liu told RTHK that Beijing had given itself "more room" to focus on high-quality growth, by setting a relatively low economic growth target of around five percent this year.

He said this demonstrates a shift in focus from pursuing high GDP growth to improving the quality of life for the people. This, Liu said, means taking technological advancement, ecological quality and social harmony into account.

The expert said Beijing would also make a push to overhaul energy-intensive industries with high-tech and eco-friendly ones, and require individuals to recycle and reduce waste.

Liu also pointed out that the "Two Sessions" meeting announced the establishment of a new administration to manage data to optimise the digital economy, seen as the new engine for modernising the nation’s economic structure.

"The data administration will be charged with a better blueprint of the Chinese telecommunication network, to formulate the new data standard, to manage the right type of government fund [so as] to support the data industry together with the artificial intelligence and cloud computing," Liu said.

Larry Qiu, the chair professor of economics at Lingnan University, agreed that a focus on innovation is the right way forward.

While China has achieved remarkable success in the past by embracing a market economy, he cautioned that "we have reached the stage in which the continued growth from reform will be very difficult."

"So we have to find new ways," Qiu stressed. "And it seems to be in the long run… the only engine of economic growth is innovation, and China needs to put a lot of emphasis on this."

However, Qiu thinks the shift towards high-quality growth will be a long-term effort, saying he believes it may be difficult for the authorities to achieve the five-percent GDP growth target while simultaneously mobilising the needed resources to shift to high-quality growth.

Other challenges the nation will face, Qiu said, will include how to promote cutting edge technology without widening inequality.

"So now we’re talking about AI (artificial intelligence) robots, right? This is a good technological advancement, but these are the things which perhaps would enlarge income inequality because they may very likely replace unskilled workers, right?" he queried.

Even initiatives such as the push to develop the Greater Bay Area, he said, would effectively concentrate talent and capital in the region, drawing them away from other parts of the country that are already lagging behind.

As such, he said Beijing will need to figure out how to create incentives for more investment in the central and western parts of the nation so they can also benefit from technological advances and minimise regional inequality.