Costumers select goods at a tax-free shop in Sanya, South China’s Hainan province, on Oct 5. (GUO CHENG / XINHUA)

The economic progress China has attained during the past five years and amid this year’s pandemic battle is injecting hope to world recovery, with further stimulus from the upcoming 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25).

The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Communist Party of China Central Committee, from Oct 25 to 29, has unveiled the country’s development targets in the coming years.

China’s resilient economic performance, supported by the government’s coordinated response to effectively contain the novel coronavirus in the country, could become an important lifeline for the global economic recovery, experts said in response to China’s latest economic data.

The world’s second-largest economy saw growth of 4.9 percent year-on-year in the third quarter, compared with 3.2 percent in the second quarter, according to data released on Oct 19 by China’s National Bureau of Statistics. The nation’s GDP growth reached 0.7 percent over the first three quarters of 2020.

Ben Cavender, managing director at China Market Research Group, said: “It’s clear that China has managed a remarkable recovery and that policymakers have done a good job of navigating a very uncertain economic climate.

“China’s strong economy should be seen as a good thing right now, as China is such an important export market for so many other countries,” Cavender said. “The fact that China is still buying and hasn’t seen an economic collapse is important for the world, as China right now is a lifeline for a lot of multinational businesses that have seen severe reductions in sales in their home markets.”

He added that “China will come out of 2020 in a very strong position economically”.

Jim O’Neill, a leading British economist and chair of the international think tank Chatham House, said: “Unless something very peculiar happens in the fourth quarter, China’s recovery is going to be much stronger in 2020 than any other G20 country, and certainly with positive real GDP growth.”

The Chinese economy’s exceptional recovery from the impact of COVID-19 may have surprised many overseas observers, but it is just one of a host of achievements China has made during its 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20).

While inspecting Hunan province in September, President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, said the country is about to accomplish major goals and tasks set out in the 13th Five-Year Plan and is set to embark on a journey to fully build a modern socialist country.

Over the last five years, China has become the world’s largest middle-income population and is set to end absolute poverty, which has haunted the nation for thousands of years.

Signs over the past five years have shown that China’s development has entered a new stage. Xi has stressed the importance of adapting to, steering and leading the new normal of economic development.

A new vision for development was introduced featuring innovative, coordinated, green and open development that is for everyone.

In May, the Party leadership made a strategic decision to foster a new “dual-circulation” development pattern, which focuses on the domestic market as the country’s economic mainstay with domestic and foreign markets complementing each other. The pattern marks a major move for development for the coming years and is enshrined into the framework of the 14th Five-Year Plan, economists and experts said.

“Making the domestic market the mainstay does not mean we are developing our economy with the door closed,” Xi told a symposium of entrepreneurs in July. By giving full play to the potential of the domestic market, both domestic and foreign markets can be better connected and utilized to realize robust and sustainable development, he said.

Zhang Yansheng, chief researcher at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said the idea of dual-circulation development will become a pivot of the 14th Five-Year Plan, highlighting China’s new solution to coordinating domestic development and further opening-up in the new era. The pattern is seen as a key direction for policymakers in hammering out the economic blueprint for the next five years.

Zhang said the next period marks the first five years on the country’s journey toward building a modern socialist country by 2049, and the development pattern will help China build a complete domestic supply-and-demand system and meet people’s growing need for a better life.

“Domestically, China will focus on meeting people’s needs as well as boosting technological innovation to create new engines of growth,” Zhang said. “On the external side, China will continue to expand opening-up and build an open economic system at higher levels. Under the new development pattern, China will open its doors wider to the outside world instead of simply seeking self-sufficient domestic development.”

More effort will be made to boost domestic demand, spur consumer buying, open more industries — including finance — to foreign investors and gain a key edge in global competition.

Wang Changlin, president of the Academy of Macroeconomic Research of the National Development and Reform Commission, said China’s new economic initiative is not intended to seek seclusion under the domestic circulation model as it emphasizes the opening of the economy.

After years of development, China is moving forward from the phase of relying more on international economic networks to a new stage of domestic and international economic networks complementing each other, Wang said.

Also, China has the conditions to build the new development modes with the support of its extra-large domestic market, strong innovative capability, adequate funding, complete industrial support system and sufficient human resources, Wang added.

“The Chinese economy has posted a stronger-than-expected rebound despite facing a grim and complicated situation both at home and abroad amid the COVID-19 pandemic, showing its great resilience, strong vitality and large amount of room for maneuver.”

“The Chinese economy is playing a key role in supporting global economic stability,” Wang added. “China will continue to build an open economy and share its development opportunities with the world.”

The role of opening up was repeatedly highlighted over the past years. Xi, at the opening of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference in 2018, said that China’s high-quality development can only be achieved through greater openness.

China has signed 200 cooperation deals on the Belt and Road Initiative with 138 countries and 30 international organizations. The country has also established 21 pilot free trade zones. Its global business environment ranking moved up to the 31st in 2020.

At home, the Chinese leadership has been working to shore up weak links regarding people’s livelihoods.

At the end of 2015, China had more than 54 million rural residents living in poverty.

Commanding the country’s fight against poverty, Xi put forward clear work plans and targeted measures at each key moment. By the end of 2019, China’s poverty headcount ratio had dropped to 0.6 percent.

The country is now in the final stretch of its plan to eradicate extreme poverty. Xi told the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September that China is confident of meeting the poverty-eradication target in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 10 years ahead of schedule.

During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, China rolled out a slew of measures to address people’s concerns: More than 60 million new urban jobs were created; over 50 million urban residents moved from unsuitable housing to new homes; nearly 30 million elderly people were provided with old-age care subsidies; and in the nine-year compulsory education stage, the number of dropouts due to poverty fell to zero.

The average life expectancy of the Chinese people reached 77.3 years as of the end of 2019. More than 95 percent of the population is covered by basic health insurance plans.

The year 2020 was unusual due to the sudden outbreak of COVID-19. China’s leadership waged a war against the virus, not giving up on any life and covering all medical costs for confirmed coronavirus patients. “We are willing to do whatever it takes to protect people’s lives!” Xi once said.

In 2020, China was among the first countries to bring COVID-19 under control, resume work and reopen schools and businesses.

The next five years will usher China into a new phase of development. It will be the first five years of the country’s new journey toward fully building a modern socialist country.

Xinhua contributed to this story.