China holds Central Economic Work Conference to plan for 2024

The annual Central Economic Work Conference was held in Beijing as Chinese leaders decided priorities for the economic work in 2024.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, delivered an important speech at the conference.

It was noted at the meeting that China's economy has achieved a recovery, with solid progress made in high-quality development in 2023.

To further revive the economy, China still has to overcome some difficulties and challenges, including lack of effective demand, overcapacity in some sectors, lackluster social expectations, certain risks and hidden problems, bottlenecks in the domestic circulation, as well as rising complexity, severity and uncertainty of the external environment, the meeting said.

It is important to be more mindful of potential dangers and to effectively respond to and solve these problems, said the meeting.

Overall, favorable conditions outweigh unfavorable factors in China's development, and the fundamental trend of the economic recovery and long-term positive outlook has not changed, the meeting said, urging stronger confidence.

Regarding the economic work next year, the meeting called for efforts to pursue progress while ensuring stability, consolidate stability through progress, and establish the new before abolishing the old.

It urged the introduction of more policies that will help stabilize expectations, growth and employment, as well as active endeavors to promote the transition of growth models, structural adjustment, and quality and efficiency improvement, so as to consolidate the foundation of stable economic development with positive outlook.

The country should strengthen counter-cyclical and cross-cyclical adjustments of macro policies and continue to implement a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy with strengthened innovation and coordination of policy tools, the meeting said.